Analysis Of Claud In The Champion Of The World
Every human has flaws. Their destiny is determined by if they let those flaws dictate their actions or not. Some of the characters in Roald Dahl's Skin and other Stories let their flaws dictate their actions which leads to their downfall.
In “The Champion of the World”, Claud and Gordon work at a filling station. Claud is a poacher. He shares this with Gordon and asks him to join with him to poach some pheasants. Before they go, Gordon gets an idea on how to poach pheasants on a grand scale: Fill raisins with seconal to put them to sleep, then come back later to collect them. Roald Dahl writes some of his characters with flaws that eventually lead to their own downfall. In 'The Champion of the World', Claud's greed, pride, and overconfidence lead to his downfall. First, Claud's greed is apparent when he asks Gordon for 200 seconal stuffed raisins instead of 49. Second, Claud's pride is evident when Gordon finds out that he is out to ruin Victor Hazel's party. Lastly, Claud is overconfident. His overconfidence leads him to make bad decisions.
Claud's greed leads to his eventual downfall. His greed is shown when he tells Gordon "Forty-nine's not enough. We want at least 200. " (Dahl 155) Here, Claud is asking Gordon for quadruple the amount of sleep medicine that he has. Instead of buying more, they decide to divide the powder into each tablet into 4 raisins. Because of this, the pheasants wake up early and fly away, exposing Claud. His pride is also one of his biggest flaws. His pride is palpable when Gordon realizes that " [Claud] is out the wreck Mr. Victor Hazel's opening-day shooting party. " (Dahl 156) If he succeeds in poaching 200 pheasants, without being caught, it would "be a milestone in the history of poaching" (Dahl 146). Ironically, because he tried to poach so many pheasants, they end up flying away right in front of him and embarrassing him.
Claud is also overconfident. When Claud and Gordon go to collect the pheasants, Claud insists on counting them all before bagging them and going home. It is apparent in Claud's tone when he says, " The most my dad ever got in one night was fifteen!", that he is happy and proud that he outperformed his father. This gives him a boost of confidence. Confidence is a good trait to have but being overconfident is a flaw. Because of his overconfidence, Claud doesn’t even think about when the pheasants will wake up and they end up flying away right in front of him in the light of day.
