Man from the South

Teacher’s notes

LEVEL 6

PENGUIN READERS Teacher Support Programme

Man from the South and Other Stories
Roald Dahl
the bet. The boy’s hand is tied to the desk with his little finger sticking out and the man holds a chopping knife at the ready. The boy makes his lighter light successfully eight times when the door suddenly opens and a woman rushes in yelling in Spanish. She says that she should not have left him alone and that he has already cut off fortyseven fingers in the place where they come from. She had managed to win everything from him, but it had taken her a long time. The last thing the narrator sees as he leaves the room is the woman’s hand … with only one finger and one thumb left on it.

Beware of the Dog

About the author
Roald Dahl was born in Wales in 1916. He was a fighter pilot in World War II. In 1940 his plane crashed and this became the subject of one of his first short stories, published in 1942. After this he became a very successful writer of short stories throughout the 1950s. Dahl married the actress Patricia Neal in 1953 and in 1960 he started to write stories for his own children. Titles such as James and the Giant Peach and The Witches became worldfamous and Dahl is recognized as one of the best writers for children in the English language. His stories for adults are also very popular – and characterized by unexpected conclusions. Many of his books were turned into films. Roald Dahl died in 1990 at the age of 74 of a rare blood disease.

Summary
This is a collection of seven short stories by Roald Dahl. Although the stories are not connected to one another they are linked in the way that the author invites us to take a wry, fresh look at human nature.

Pilot Peter Williamson has sustained a massive injury while flying a mission over Vichy France (the name given to the German-controlled areas of the country). He parachutes from the plane and later awakes to find himself in a hospital bed. His nurse tells him he is in...