Roald Dahl Short Stories: Plots & Characters
The Landlady
Billy Weaver, a 17-year-old, seeks lodging at a seemingly charming boarding house. He accepts tea from the landlady, who discusses previous guests, including Mr. Mulholland. Billy notices the parrot is dead, and slowly, a chilling reality dawns on him about the landlady's true intentions and the fate of her former tenants.
William and Mary
Mary Pearl receives a note from her recently deceased husband, William, a well-regarded philosopher who died of cancer. Dr. Landy proposes a radical procedure: transplanting William's brain and an artificial heart. Mary initially refuses but eventually agrees. The story concludes with Mary revealing her true, controlling nature, now with William's brain preserved.
Way Up to Heaven
Mr. and Mrs. Foster are a wealthy married couple. Mrs. Foster suffers from a pathological fear of missing flights. Mr. Foster (Eugene) deliberately delays their departure for a six-week trip to Paris to visit their daughter and family. After an initial delay due to fog, Eugene pretends to go to his club, then returns to the house. Mrs. Foster hears something before leaving for the airport. Her husband dies, trapped in the house, a victim of her calculated revenge.
Parson's Pleasure
Mr. Boggis, an antique furniture dealer, disguises himself as a clergyman. He travels around the farmhouses of Brill village, attempting to acquire valuable furniture at extremely low prices. At the Rummins' farmhouse, he spots a genuine Chippendale chest. He convinces Mr. Rummins and his son, Bert, along with neighbor Claud, that he only wants the legs, leading them to cut off the valuable top, destroying its worth.
Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat
Mrs. Bixby, married to a dentist, travels to Baltimore once a month, ostensibly to visit her elderly aunt. In reality, she is having an affair with a Colonel. She receives a letter and a package from him containing a valuable mink coat and a pawn ticket. She devises a plan to retrieve the coat without her husband's knowledge, involving a taxi and a pawn shop, but her scheme takes an unexpected turn involving her husband's employer.
Royal Jelly
The Taylor family, Albert, Mabel, and their newborn daughter, face a crisis: the baby is not eating and losing weight. Albert, a beekeeper, secretly adds royal jelly to their daughter's milk, convinced of its nutritional benefits from magazines. Mabel discovers this and tells him to stop, but he continues. Albert reveals he also consumed royal jelly as a baby, and now resembles a large bee. The story ends with the chilling implication that their daughter is transforming into a 'queen grub,' vulnerable to catching a cold.
Georgy Porgy
George, a priest, harbors a strong aversion to physical contact with women. He attempts to understand female psychology by observing rats, concluding that women are naturally predatory and sexually driven. Invited to a party hosted by Lady Birdwell, he encounters Miss Roach, who, despite ordering a soft fruit drink, consumes alcohol. They end up in a summer house where an intoxicated George begins kissing Miss Roach. He then encounters several other men, mostly in white coats, suggesting a psychological breakdown or institutionalization.
Genesis and Catastrophe
The story focuses on Klara and Alois Hitler, parents of a newborn child. Klara fears the child will die, having lost several previous infants, and prays for its survival. Alois, the father, expresses anger and frustration over the child's perceived weakness. The chilling irony is that this child is Adolf Hitler, and the 'catastrophe' is yet to unfold.
Edward the Conqueror
A silver cat, burned in a bonfire, is rescued by Louisa. Edward, her husband, is concerned about the cat's presence and the potential for police involvement. The cat has warts on its face. Louisa finds solitary pleasure in playing the piano, one of her greatest passions. The cat seems particularly enthralled when Louisa plays Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets and Der Weihnachtsbaum. Louisa comes to believe the cat is the reincarnation of Liszt. Edward dismisses the cat's reactions as a trick. Louisa plans to reveal this discovery to the world, but Edward disagrees and burns the cat.
Pig
The story follows a young woman whose parents are killed by police. An aunt on her father's side takes her to Virginia. Raised as a strict vegetarian, she becomes a lawyer. The story culminates in her being forced to cook and eat pork, a profound violation of her deeply held beliefs and upbringing.
The Champion of the World
This story details the elaborate and humorous scheme of two friends, Poacher and Gordon, to poach pheasants from a wealthy estate owner. They plan to drug the pheasants with raisins soaked in sleeping pills, then collect them. The plan goes awry when the pheasants, still drugged, escape into the village, leading to comical chaos and an unexpected outcome for the 'champions' of poaching.