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The Landlady By Roald Dahl Analysis

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Liquid Death “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl. What makes this story such a great mystery is the way Dahl makes the characters, the characterization in this story plays a big part in this story. The setting affects the mood as soon as the story starts. In one of the first sentences Dahl describes the air as, “deadly cold”. That creates a pretty dark and hostile mood. Billy Weaver, a 17-year-old boy who travels to Bath, England on business. Along the way, he catches sight of a bed and breakfast and is strangely charmed by the sign outside the door and the cozy setting within, so he decides to put up there for the night. He is greeted by a middle-aged, cheerful, and talkative landlady, who insists upon sitting and conversing with the young man. Also she demands …show more content…

In the beginning of the story Billy is walking through a dark neighborhood when he sees the landlady’s home. He is compelled by something to walk up to the front porch. When Billy goes to ring the doorbell the landlady opened the door in no time, “It must have been at because he didn’t even have to time to take his finger from the bell-button,” (2). This is Billy’s first interaction with the landlady in the story. Dahl made you think that something was going on right when Billy met the landlady. This passage makes you think right away that this landlady is a little creepy, and gives you a hostel feeling. It was like she had been waiting for him to coming to the door a ring the bell. Billy stepped inside and the landlady demanded for him to right his name in a book that everyone who stayed here wrote their name in. When Billy only saw the two names inside of the book, Christopher Mulholland and Gregory W. Temple, they looked familiar to him. Billy says, “Christopher Mulholland… wasn’t that the name of the Eton schoolboy?” The landlady replies, “Milk and sugar?”(pg.4). This passage has great characterization. When you read about how the landlady acts and speaks you know from the beginning that

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