Aunt Sponge

Aunt Sponge is James' aunt, Spiker's sister, and one of the main antagonists from James and the Giant Peach. It is unknown whether Spiker and Sponge are the sisters of James' father or mother. She is played by Miriam Margolyes in the movie.

Personality
Aunt Sponge is a lazy, greedy, selfish, and morbidly fat woman, and equally as cruel and repulsive as her sister Spiker. Sponge is more gluttonous, thinking of eating the peach while Spiker seizes upon the money-making opportunities it will bring. Sponge is more or less dominated by Aunt Spiker, but attempts to save her own life instead of Spiker's when she notices the giant peach rolling towards her. However, they trip up over each other and both meet the same end.

James and the Giant Peach
In the movie, after James' parents get eaten by a rhinoceros, he is sent to live with his mean aunts Spiker and Sponge who adopt him. In the beginning of the film, when James awakens from being asleep in his room, Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge come into his room and Aunt Sponge calls him a lazy little bug, and along with her sister, orders him to get up and get to work. They are both very abusive and treat him like a slave, forcing him to do hard labor and feeding him fish heads. They also have a terrible hatred of insects and bugs and kill them in awful ways, and are thus hated by them as well.

Later on in the movie, Aunt Sponge is seen sitting next to Aunt Spiker in a chair and tells her sister that if she takes off both her socks, she'll see her dainty toes, to which Spiker tells Sponge to not forget how much her tummy shows. Aunt Sponge then notices James reading his travel map to New York City and asks why he isn't working, to which James replies, "I've finished the wood." When they realize that James dreams of leaving, Spiker and Sponge berate James, and Sponge tears up James' travel map. Both aunts then demand James to get back to work.

Sometime later, Spiker and Sponge discover a peach on a withered old tree, and it grows to immense proportions. Spiker and Sponge use the giant peach as an attraction, making lots of money as James watches from the house, not allowed to leave. That night, Spiker and Sponge send James outside to pick up the garbage.

Later, when James escapes on the giant peach, he is followed by his two persistent aunts all the way to New York, where they try to convince the authorities that James is a liar and that he be released to them. However, James, now no longer afraid of his cruel aunts, stands up to them and reveals the truth about their horrible treatment of him. He then ties them up with Miss Spider's thread, and the police take them away.

In the book, Spiker and Sponge are both crushed to death by the giant peach. In the 1996 film, they survive and pursue James to New York City in their car (in the Ice World, James and Miss Spider see a shipwreck with figureheads, having a terrible resemblance of the two aunts). Upon arriving in New York, both are soaked as if they had been swimming through the sea.