An Irregular Bet

“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.