Man from the south door Roald Dahl

Title;

Man from the South.
You can find the story in the book “Someone like you”
In this book you find nineteen stories, and one of them is “Man from the South”.

Author;

Roald Dahl.

Place of story;

Jamaica. You know this because in the beginning of the story the narrower speaks with Carlos, and they talk about the beautiful weather in Jamaica.

Genre;

Horror story.
Although you wouldn’t think so in the beginning, the story’s genre is horror. The further you read, the more you get to know Carlos, and the more you get to see what kind of man he is. I don’t think he’s quite normal, he has a very strange kind of thinking. A normal person wouldn’t set up a bet like this.

About the author;

Roald Dahl was born in Llandaf in South Wales of Norwegian parents. He was educated in England and then worked in Africa for the Shell Oil Company. In the Second World War he was a RAF fighter pilot. It was after an air-crash and “a monumental bash on the head” that he began to write.
In 1942 Roald Dahl started with writing his first story “The Gremlins”. Walt Disney bought the film rights of this story immediatly. In 1953 Roald Dahl married the American actress Patricia Neal. The got six kids. In 1983 he divorced Patricia, en he married Felicity ( Liccy ) D’Abreu. Roald Dahl died in 1990 of leukemia.
Roald Dahl used to write with a green baize writing-board on his knee and a pencil in his hand in a small shed at the bottom of his garden.
His stories are full of huge, wild ideas and he hopes they will help children to learn to love books so that through the rest of their lives they will get immeasurable pleasure and solace from reading.
In his earlier autobiography, Boy, Roald Dahl told his childhood. In Going Solo he writes of his wartime experiences.
Other books written by Roald Dahl are: Boy, The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, The Witches, George’s Marvellous Medicine, Danny The Champion Of The World, The BFG and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

Main characters;

- The narrator; he tells the whole story. You don’t get to know a lot about him, because he doesn’t introduce himself, but you can read he’s on a holiday ( in Jamaica ). He’s not an American, but he speaks English very well, so he probably comes from an English-speaking country. One other thing we know from him is that he smokes.

- Carlos; the “man from the South”. He’s a small old man who walks very quickly with little bouncing strides, pushing himself high up on his toes with each step, and is immaculately dressed in a white suit. On his head he wears a large, creamy Panama hat, and white buckskin shoes, with little holes all over for ventilation. He’s probably around sixty-eight or seventy. He has an Italian or Spanish accent and probably some sort of South-American. He smokes cigars, and he likes to bet. In the end of the story we learn that he hasn’t anything left to bet with because a woman who is either his girlfriend, wife or sister ( I’m not sure what exactly she is, because it isn’t told in the story) has won it all from him a long while ago.

- The American sailor; He’s about nineteen or twenty years old and is an American sailor. He has a long freckled face, and a rather sharp, birdlike nose. His chest isn’t very sunburned but has some freckles on it and a few wisps of pale-reddish hair. He has an English girlfriend and smokes too. We don’t get to know much more about him, but he also likes to bet.

- The woman who looks after Carlos. We get to know very little about her, but we get to know that she looks after Carlos ( the story doesn’t tell if she’s his wife, sister, girlfriend, aunt etc. ) She has bet Carlos a lot of times, and after a lot of time, and a lot hard work, she has won all his belongings, but after that she has only one finger and a thumb left on her hand. The woman speaks almost perfectl English.

These are the main-characters. Other characters in this story are; the English girl, and the coloured maid.

The Story;

The story is about a very strange bet made by Carlos. He bets with an American sailor; if the boy strikes his lighter ten times in a  successfully, he wins a Cadillac. If the boy fails to struck the lighter ten times in a row successfully, the little finger on his left hand gets chopped off. The narrator is called in as referee. When the boy has struck the lighter eight times, a women comes in and tells Carlos’ story. She tells them he owns nothing and that she won all his belongings a long time ago. It took her a lot of work, and a lot of time, but in the end she won it all. It only cost her all of her fingers, except a thumb and one finger.

The title;

The title is “Man from the South”, and it’s about Carlos, because he comes from the south. The title is not very well chosen because it doesn’t has anything to do with the actual story. But on the other hand, the title is very well chosen, because it’s mystic, and you don’t know what to expect. When you start reading and you find out who’s the “man from the South”, you start thinking what his role in the story is and why it’s called after him.

The End;

The story ends totally unexpectedly and in a way that I would have never come up with. I thought the boy would lose and that his finger would get chopped off. I also thought that there would come a long story after it, I really hadn’t expect it would end so fast.
The story has an open- ánd a closed end;
Closed end; you know that the boy is okay, and that the bet is over now.
Open end; you don’t know what happens next to Carlos and the woman that looks after him.

My own opinion;

When we started to read the story, I though; “oh no, not another boring story...here we go again...”
I thought this because last year we only got to read a lot of very boring stories, with no excitement, thrill or what so ever. They were all standard stories, I liked to read them, but they were very boring...
This story began a bit boring, but the further you read, the more interested you get in the characters, and what’s happening to them in the story.
I liked this story because it was about a very awkward subject, really the kind of story I normally don’t read about. Because the story’s about such a strange subject, betting, it’s really fun and exciting to read. I really had a fun time reading it and when I was reading, I just couldn’t stop and go and do other things...
I also to read some other story’s from the book “Someone like you”.
I found out that Roald Dahl has a very extraordinary way of writing storiess; he starts a bit boring, then he throws some excitement and thrill in it, and he ends his story’s in a way you really wouldn’t expect, he gives a sort of twist to the end. When you are reading the story, you think “oh, it’s gonna end this and this way...”, but when you come to the end, it turns out to end totally different from what you’ve expected. I like that very much, it gives a sort of extra thrill...