Roald Dahl’s famous short story, “The Way Up to Heaven” (1, 2)

The reader is encouraged to believe that rich, 70-year-old Mr. Foster continually frightens his faithful wife by keeping her waiting, when he knows that she gets panic attacks if she arrives at places late.

But Mr. Foster’s guilt in this regard is explicitly stated to be in doubt: “Assuming (though one cannot be sure) that the husband was guilty…” (2, p. 131). 

And if the author created this character, why wouldn’t he be absolutely sure of his guilt?

The alleged villain dies in a stuck elevator of their large Manhattan building while his allegedly saintly wife—before she left, she probably heard his cries for help—was in Paris, visiting her grandchildren. He was supposedly not found while she was away, because their servants had time-off. But a large, luxury building in Manhattan would have been continuously staffed and monitored. And a rich, 70-year-old man would have been searched for when he did not contact his friends or show up at his club. Thus, the story’s scenario is implausible.

However, even if the readers suspended disbelief and overlooked the story’s implausibilities, why didn’t the author see the story’s problems? Why couldn’t Dahl read the character’s mind and be sure that he was guilty? Because, in a psychologically significant sense, the author didn’t create this story and these characters, which probably came from his storytelling, alternate personalities.

1. Wikipedia. “The Way Up to Heaven.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Up_to_Heaven

2. Roald Dahl. The Best of Roald Dahl. New York, Vintage Books, 1990.

Comment added next day: If she had knowingly left him to die, then she was the true villain, and her husband had known it, in Dahl's opinion.