Edmond Forest December 7th 2021 Eng

gr.07 Cégep Saint-Laurent

In the late 70’s, although women rights had progressed greatly since the beginning of the
century, a lot of work still had to be done. In fact, even though they were legally equal to men,
they weren’t perceived quite the same. That vision is reflected in books written at that time, such
as Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl. This text dives deep into the dynamics between
characters of different sex in these short stories. The focus will first be on the power dynamic
between them before moving to the place of love in their interactions.

Firstly, power is at the core of the dynamics between genders. Indeed, men in the book often
take for account that they have the upper hand over members of the ‘‘second sex’’. A good
example of that is the behavior of Mike in taste. Since he thinks he’s in control over the outcome
of his bet with Mr.Pratt (and also probably because he’s the man of the housen, he feels like he
deserves power over his daughter’s decisions and doesn’t care much about how she feels
about being part of the bet.This is a result of the power dynamic between them, and therefore
influenced their relationship. It is also important to understand the correlation between the
feeling of control and empowerment, because the first feeling makes you believe that you have
power over your situation and to a certain extent over people around you. Based on this logic
and the preceding example, feeling in control is logically equivalent to believing you are
powerful. Dahl is not afraid to put women in powerful positions either, as demonstrated by the
character of lady Turton in Neck. Although she will be helpless later in the story, she doesn’t fear
to make it well known that she’s powerful socially speaking in the beginning. For example, after
Major Haddock made a joke about the protagonist writing “nice things about [them] in [his]
column”, she replied : "He better had, Lady Turton said, or I'll say some nasty ones about him
on my front page." (Both p.68*). This further demonstrates how power defines the relationship
between men and women, because she uses it to show her superiority and to intimidate the
poor journalist. He will afterwards act very carefully around her, not daring to confront her in any
sort of way.

Another key component of the relationships between men and women throughout the short
stories is love. It is something concrete that pushes different characters to interact with one
another. For example, in Neck, the behaviors of both Major Haddock and Carmen la Rosa are
motivated by how attractive they find the powerful woman that is Lady Turton. They always
seem to want her attention and to be in her good grace, and she doesn’t mind it at all, as shown
by the fact that she’s described as “exhilarated” by her comrades’ advances on page 68*.
Although we can assume that they are also looking for a share of her powerful position by being
in her good graces, this shows that she at least is touched by their attempts (or at least feels
empowered by them). Power can after all be attractive. Another example of the importance of
love in different characters' interactions is the relationship between Mary Maloney and her
husband Patrick. In fact, this one-sided love also demonstrates how the absence of love can
affect how they interact with each other: she kills him for it after all, which is pretty extreme on
the spectrum of interactions if I may say so myself.

In conclusion, the two factors that most influence the dynamics between men and women in
Roald Dahl’s Tales of the unexpected are power, because it makes people believe they can
enforce their will on members of the opposite sex, and love, which emotionally chalenges
different carachters and therefore define how they’ll approach one another. These basic
parameters however change drastically in each story, and that certainly plays a role in the
“unexpectedness” of these tales.

*links to my version of the book for reference:

http://rhsvideo.weebly.com/uploads/7/8/1/9/7819681/roald_dahl_the_collected_short_stories_of
_roald_bookos.org1_.pdf