“Man from the South”
is a short story by Roald Dahl, which is based on a bet of one young man and
one old man. First there was this young man that was going to smoke a cigar,
when the older man come and start talking of the lighter that the young man
has. The bet was that if this young man can run his lighter 10 times without
failing we won a Cadilac, but if he doesn't he would lose; his finger…Later on
they went to the old man house to complete the bet, they were counting 8 and a
women came in the door, she started shouting “Carlos, Carlos!”And take off the
knife from the young man hand. The women started asking forgiveness and explain
the things of this old man; later she get near the table and everyone can see
that she only had a finger and the thumb on his hand.
Roald Dahl uses
many unique words that help the reader imagine exactly what is happening in the
story, on their minds. For example;
“…Then he stared shifting about in his seat, and rubbing his chest, and stroking the back of his neck, and finally he placed both hands on his knees and began tapping his against his knee-caps soon he was tapping with one of his feet as well…”(4)
This example makes
by the use of specific actions that the man is doing so we can imagine the old
man really unsettled and moving a lot, this is a example of feeling because he
is touching all of his body and we know that because he uses words like
"rubbing" or tapping”. We can infer that the man is anxious and I
think that is because the bet they are going to make. The author uses many
adjectives to describe the characters, settings and everything that is
happening on the story. Like for example the description of the old man Roald
Dahl said;
"Just then I noticed a small, oldish man walking briskly around the edge of the pool. He was immaculately dressed in a white suit and he walked very quickly with little bouncing strides, pushing himself high up onto his toes with each step. He had on a large creamy panama hat, and he came bouncing along the side of the pool, looking at the people and the chairs.”(1)
This can show us
the type of person and the personality in general of this man. With his suit
and his panama we can imagine him as a reach and fine person and we can imagine
that the way he wins all his money, is by the bets he make.
In conclusion I
think that Roald Dahl story "Man from the South" is very interesting
and have a unique theme and idea of the story. This teaches us that we don’t
need to talk or make anything with strangers specially bets. Also make us
realize that young people are very risk takers like the American boy that for
winning something good he risk another thing that can be more important.
