An Analysis of A Piece of Cake by Roald Dahl
Commentary “A Piece of Cake”
“A Piece of Cake” is the third short story of Roald Dahl’s collection Over to you published in 1946. The collection deals with Royal Air Force pilots or civilians who participate in World War II. The story deals in a first part, with an unknown first-person narrator who doesn’t remember his accident well. Before the latter happens, he and Peter, his fellow pilot plan to head towards Mersah Matruh. As they prepare to fly off, an airman warns them to be careful. The narrator and his friend answer that it will be a “Piece of Cake”. As a matter of fact, it won’t. During their flight over the Libyan desert, they face troubles and before crashing, the narrator manages to get out of the plane. Eventually, he faints. As he wakes up, Peter tells him that he has lost his nose and the narrator passes out one more time. Regarding the second part of the story, it deals with the narrator’s dreams. He dreams of airmen painting funny things on the planes, fighting with the Germans in the air, falling into the ocean and sitting on a chair. His dreams are also scattered with some moments of consciousness. Last but not least, he dreams of his mother and of tumbling over a cliff. Finally, he awakes and the nurse tells him that he has been here for four days in a hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. Then, she tells the narrator that he will be fine and goes away. The story provides us with, in a first part of the short story, a heterodiegetic narrator who tells us about what he hardly remembers. Yet, the voice of the homodiegetic narrator can be heard at the same time. In the second part of the short story, the narrator is homodiegetic, thus unreliable. Regarding the focalization, it is either omniscient, embodied by the heterodiegetic narrator or internal since the reader follows the narrator’s actions according to his point of view until the end. Even if the main frame of the short story is mainly tragic, dealing with the horror of war, the first
“A Piece of Cake” is the third short story of Roald Dahl’s collection Over to you published in 1946. The collection deals with Royal Air Force pilots or civilians who participate in World War II. The story deals in a first part, with an unknown first-person narrator who doesn’t remember his accident well. Before the latter happens, he and Peter, his fellow pilot plan to head towards Mersah Matruh. As they prepare to fly off, an airman warns them to be careful. The narrator and his friend answer that it will be a “Piece of Cake”. As a matter of fact, it won’t. During their flight over the Libyan desert, they face troubles and before crashing, the narrator manages to get out of the plane. Eventually, he faints. As he wakes up, Peter tells him that he has lost his nose and the narrator passes out one more time. Regarding the second part of the story, it deals with the narrator’s dreams. He dreams of airmen painting funny things on the planes, fighting with the Germans in the air, falling into the ocean and sitting on a chair. His dreams are also scattered with some moments of consciousness. Last but not least, he dreams of his mother and of tumbling over a cliff. Finally, he awakes and the nurse tells him that he has been here for four days in a hospital in Alexandria, Egypt. Then, she tells the narrator that he will be fine and goes away. The story provides us with, in a first part of the short story, a heterodiegetic narrator who tells us about what he hardly remembers. Yet, the voice of the homodiegetic narrator can be heard at the same time. In the second part of the short story, the narrator is homodiegetic, thus unreliable. Regarding the focalization, it is either omniscient, embodied by the heterodiegetic narrator or internal since the reader follows the narrator’s actions according to his point of view until the end. Even if the main frame of the short story is mainly tragic, dealing with the horror of war, the first