The Nature of Deception Manifest in "Tales of the Unexpected"

As the title Tales of the Unexpected suggests, the short stories inside this book contain a variety of turning points. Sometimes the turning points provide a plausible explanation to a seemingly mysterious chain of events, as in “Taste” and “Skin.” In other stories, the turning points expose the hidden part of the individual, as in “Man from the South,” when it is revealed that the woman engaged in multiple bets. Among these turning points, those which provide an understandable explanation to mysterious, even bizarre events, effectively portray the human nature of deception: humans often deceive others because they do not want real risk.

In the story “Taste,” a connoisseur called Richard Pratt participates in a seemingly absurd bet. Based on his numerous experiences on tasting and evaluating food and drink, he strongly insists that he can figure out the name of the wine served at a dinner. He proposes a bizarre bet: if he exactly figures out the name of the wine, he would marry the daughter of the dinner host. The dinner host, Mike Schofield, says that this bet is absurd, but reluctantly participates in the bet. Although Pratt pretends to concentrate in figuring out its name, in the end of the story it is revealed that Pratt already saw the name of the wine. Moreover, in the story “Skin,” Drioli has a tattoo on his back drawn by a famous artist, Soutine. Because the tattoo is an early work of a well-known artist, many people wants to have it, and a man states that he would give Drioli immense wealth and pleasure if Drioli gives him the picture. However, the man was actually incapable of giving Drioli the promised gift. The two stories have similar endings which remarkably reveal the deception of characters.

Such deception enables the characters to participate in a safe bet, which ensures that they would get what they want. As a result, the characters have a strong motivation to engage in deception. This ending shows that humans deceive others for the sake of their safe, 100% sure advantage. Moreover, the placement of the “revelation” of deception reflects another characteristic of human deception. The revelation is always placed at the end of the story, which provides an unexpected turning point. Such placement could be done for the sake of providing a twist, but this very placement exactly reflects deception in real life. Every liar hopes that his deception would not be disclosed forever because the liar worries that he would be in trouble when his lie is exposed. Even though the deception is revealed, it is always revealed in the end. Therefore, the “unexpected” twist in the end of the story resembles the predictable pattern of disclosing a real-life deception, and further reveals the desire for safety behind deception.

When a person deceives others, he is hiding two things: the reality and the fact that he is lying. The characters of “Taste” and “Skin” lies, respectively, that he has an extraordinary ability to figure out the name of a wine and he can provide wealth and comfort in compensation of a skin tattoo. These characters conceal the reality, that he has no ability to magically figure out the name of any wine and that he has no ability to provide wealth and pleasure, to certainly gain what they desire. Moreover, they hide the fact that they lie, a behavior represented in the placement of the revelation of deception, because they want to be safe from the troubles associated with their lies being exposed. Therefore, through his deceptive characters, Roald Dahl shows that deception is a result of the desire for safety.