The Way Up to Heaven Essay Questions

The story ends up being about a woman who leaves her husband to die, yet she is the protagonist. How does Dahl establish this sympathy for Mrs. Foster?

Before Mrs. Foster makes the decision to leave Mr. Foster behind in a broken elevator, the story primarily features a tense dynamic between the couple in which Mr. Foster is intentionally cruel to his wife, who in turn is too polite to criticize him. Mrs. Foster suffers from anxiety over being late, and the story dramatizes this stress by showing how she repeatedly asks the servants in the house what time it is. By the time Mrs. Foster realizes her husband is purposely delaying them, her decision to leave him behind seems to the reader to be retribution for the horrible things he has done to Mrs. Foster.

How does the third-person narration contribute to the tone and mood of the story?

The story is told from the perspective of a third-person narrator who often expresses the thoughts and concerns of Mrs. Foster herself. In this way, the story immediately aligns itself with Mrs. Foster's character and renders her the protagonist, thus creating a tense and anxious tone throughout. However, that the story is not written in first-person is also significant, as it allows the author to maintain mystery about some of Mrs. Foster's behaviors. Readers do not know until the end of the story that Mrs. Foster left Mr. Foster to die, and even then they cannot be sure that was her intention. This distance between the reader and Mrs. Foster maintains the notion of Mrs. Foster's feigned innocence and the macabre tone that pervades the latter half of the story.

How does Mrs. Foster know that Mr. Foster is intentionally cruel to her?

The story suggests that Mrs. Foster's knowledge of Mr. Foster's true character extends even beyond the bounds of the plot. Instead, it is likely that Mrs. Foster has always been aware of Mr. Foster's cruelty but has been reluctant to believe it. In the story, two moments stand out that point Mrs. Foster toward the truth: first, Mr. Foster focuses intently on her twitching eye in the car, suggesting that he is aware his behavior is bothering his wife. Second, when Mr. Foster claims to have left the present in the house, Mrs. Foster finds it in the car, wedged deeply into the seat, suggesting Mr. Foster purposely hid it from view for the ruse of going back into the house and delaying them further. This moment—when Mrs. Foster finds the present—directly precedes Mrs. Foster's decision to leave Mr. Foster in the elevator, suggesting that it was the last in a series of indications of Mr. Foster's secret sadism.