"The Last Act" is a 1966

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by Roald Dahl, described by its author as an attempt to write about "murder by fucking." It was first published in the January 1966 issue of ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...

'', having been rejected by ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' because of its disturbing content. It was later included in the collection '' Switch Bitch'', published in 1974 by Michael Joseph Ltd.

Synopsis

Middle-aged New York widow Anna Cooper has been contemplating suicide after losing her beloved husband Ed in a car accident, but begins to feel life may be worth living again after helping out in a friend's adoption agency. While visiting

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

alone on agency business, Anna starts to feel uneasy and vulnerable. She remembers that an old flame, Dr. Conrad Kreuger, lives in Dallas, and telephones him from her hotel. Anna and Conrad had been high school sweethearts, but Anna had left Conrad to marry Ed, and Conrad had married another woman soon afterwards. Conrad seems pleased to hear from Anna, and suggests they meet in her hotel's bar for a drink. When he arrives, Anna learns that Conrad is a

gynecologist Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined ...

and is now divorced. While he appears sympathetic when Anna describes her emotional fragility, he reveals he still feels bitter about the way she had jilted him. Nevertheless, Conrad suggests that he and Anna might have "a bit of unfinished business." Anna has drunk several martinis, and lets Conrad take her to her hotel room. They prepare to make love, but Conrad suddenly becomes aggressive, pinning Anna down on the bed and "diagnosing" her as having

menopausal Menopause, also known as the climacteric, is the time in women's lives when menstrual periods stop permanently, and they are no longer able to bear children. Menopause usually occurs between the age of 47 and 54. Medical professionals often ...

symptoms. When Anna begins screaming, Conrad pushes her to the floor, and she staggers, sobbing, to the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. When Conrad – who has evidently planned revenge on Anna for breaking up with him – hears her open the bathroom cabinet, he quickly dresses and leaves the room. (The implication is that Anna will commit suicide by cutting her wrists with a razor blade.)

Reception

Dahl's biographer,

Jeremy Treglown The biographer, cultural historian and critic Jeremy Treglown (born 24 May 1946) is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Warwick. He was editor of ''The Times Literary Supplement'' through the 1980s and Chair of the Arvon Foundation, 2017-2 ...

, states that "The Last Act" is a story that Dahl "would have done better to have scrapped... While the fiction is far from drawing readers into admiring Conrad, and its sympathies remain painfully with Anna, it has no purpose as a mechanism other than to lead to a crudely sensationalist conclusion." Philosophy professor Bert Olivier analysed the story in some depth in his book ''Philosophy and Communication''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Last Act, The 1966 short stories Short stories by Roald Dahl Works originally published in Playboy