Roald Dahl is best known for short stories that make their point using dark humor and have a surprise ending. This story exhibits neither of these features. The central theme is the racism that existed under British colonial rule. Dahl gets the message across through this allegory about the way a British businessman acted badly towards an Indian doctor who answered his call for help in the middle of the night and may well have saved his life. In the story we learn that there are several kinds of poison. Unlike the deadly krait, some of them kill quite slowly.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (4,311 words)
Video Versions
1980 TV Version: This episode from the Tales Of The Unexpected British television series includes a personal introduction by Roald Dahl. To add more interest for TV viewers, Timber is portrayed as having an adulterous affair and Harry is shown to be a recovering alcoholic looking forward to returning to England. Getting this information across takes up a fair bit of viewing time, and results in some of the story content being cut. This in turn takes away a lot of the suspense of the original. Unfortunately for Harry, the ‘one drink’ he has to calm his nerves at the end of the story proves costly. Watch and enjoy!
1958 TV Version: This episode from the Alfred Hitchcock Presents American television series follows the original quite closely up to the point they all realize there is no snake on Harry’s stomach. Harry’s racist slurs against the doctor are removed, and at the very end of the episode one of the characters finds out that Harry wasn’t mistaken about there being a snake in the house. Watch and enjoy!
Radio Play Version
This play is from the 1950 season of the CBS Radio Escape series, which ran from 1947 to 1954. A surprising aspect is that this episode was broadcast on 28th July, 1950, just seven weeks after the story was first published. The fast track adaption of the story undoubtedly reflects the fact that less than five weeks earlier (on June 25, 1950) North Korea invaded the South and brought on the Korean War. This Harry’s racist nature and comments are emphasized rather than toned down in the play and, even for native Indians, the term ‘gook’ is introduced to describe them.