Roald Dahl was a novelist and a short story author, his books have sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. He is not only an author of short stories, but he is also an author of many famous novels and children's books. Dahl is best known for his writing because of his unique writing skills and artistry. His genius in creating these honourable short stories is demonstrated through his creation of Suspense, Irony, and Craftsmanship.
Suspense is the feeling of excitement uncertainty about what may happen. Roald Dahl build suspense throughout his stories with his creation of sympathetic characters in danger. For example, in his short story “The LandLady”, we are introduced to a character named Billy who is described to be an innocent, naive, seventeen-year-old boy starting out in the world of
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Expecting Mary to break into tears, she surprises the readers by grabbing a leg of lamb out of the freezer and striking Patrick over the head. This instantly kills him and the readers are left in shock when Mary does not react to her actions in the way the readers thought she would, as it states in the text “All right [Mary] told herself. So I’ve killed him”. She was not an innocent housewife like the readers had expected her to be, therefore Dahl had made a great twist in “Lamb to the Slaughter” with Mary being the character who is not as she seems. On the account of characters who are not as they seem, the way Dahl adds manipulative characters also is a great example of his suspense. For instance, in “Man from the South”, an old man named Carlos makes a bet with a young boy who owns a lighter. The bet is if the boy can light his lighter ten times in a row without failing, he will give him the keys to his Cadillac, but if the boy fails Carlos will chop off “de little finger on [his] left hand” (Dahl 38). The boy is first alarmed by how grotesque this bet was, but