Looking into the patriarchal world of Roald Dahl's short story "Taste" through and beyond its narrator
Keywords:
Roald Dahl, adult short stories, narrators and focalizors, gender, classAbstract
This article reflects on the presence of narrators in Roald Dahl’s short stories for adults, especially those in which the account is carried out by one of the characters. After underlining a number of features common to these narratives, it’s my aim to analyse the presence of the narrator in one of his most well-known short stories, “Taste”, and my main contention is that a careful consideration of this presence enriches the reading of the story. Even though the narration is carried out by a secondary character, whose role in the development of events might be minimum, his participation as narrator/commentator of the events allows to address both gender and class issues; furthermore, John Berger’s concept of gaze becomes a very useful element with which to uncover the narrator’s sympathies with a society ruled by patriarchal and classist parameters.
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