Roald Dahl And The Cat Analysis

Everyone in one way or another has done something to get even or back at another person. Friedrich Nietzsche once claimed that. “It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it, every complaint already contains revenge.” this means that if you are suffering because of something that was done to you your going to do something in return to get revenge. Nietzsche’s idea is correct because if someone does something that makes you suffer you will always react by doing something even if it is as small as being unlike the person who performed the action. Many authors including Aesop, Guy de Maupassant, and Roald Dahl have shown similar ideas. All three of these men throughout their short stories address this idea and prove it to be

In “The Frog and the Mouse” the Frog ends up tying the Mouse to him then drowns him, however then a bird swoops down and grabs the dead Mouse with the Frog still attached. This is related to the quote because the Mouse suffered and got killed but the Frog paid for his actions by getting caught by the bird. In “ The Donkey, the Fox, and the Lion the Fox tries to set his friend up to be killed but the Fox ends up getting himself and his friend killed. This is related to the quote because the Fox is making the Donkey suffer and it ends up hurting him because he ends up getting killed by the lion. These short stories are related to this idea in the way that they both discuss how if someone is going to suffer from your actions they will be avenged. If Aesop was alive to read this quote he would have agreed that the quote is true because if you read his Fables you can find the quote to be true to most of them. In one of his fable he says “Those who seek to harm others often come to harm themselves through their own deceit”. What he means by this quote is that if you intend to intentional harm someone you will often make yourself suffer. This is related to Nietzsche’s idea because in Aesop’s quote it talks about how the frog intentionally harmed the mouse and this later led to the frog getting himself harmed. Aesop’s quote proved Nietzsche 's idea to be correct because the frog made the mouse suffer,

In “Lamb to the Slaughter” a man comes home and tells his wife he is going to go get a divorce, consequently this makes the wife mad and she goes and gets a frozen lamb leg and beats her husband to death with it. This short story is related to Nietzsche’s idea of revenge because the wife was mad because she was going to be a single mother and so she got back at her husband for trying to get a divorce. Although the wife wasn’t suffering yet she was going to suffer soon, so she made her husband pay for what he was going to do. If Dahl read this Nietzsche’s quote he would agree that the quote is correct because in “Lamb to the Slaughter” it represents what the quote it saying. For example, in the story he has the wife take immediate action when the husband tells her his plan which shows that Dahl thinks that if you are going to make someone suffer you should have to pay for it. In “Lamb to the Slaughter” Dahl talks briefly about how the wifes instinct was to get back at her husband. What he is saying when he talks about this is that most people don’t even hesitate to rethink getting “even” when they are suffering or feel like they have a reason to seek revenge. By Dahl saying this he is proving that it is an instinct for most people to seek revenge when suffering. This is related to Nietzsche’s quote because Dahl makes it clear to show that the wife was unhappy and she got the short