The Landlady Characters
The main characters in “The Landlady” are Billy Weaver and the landlady.
- Billy Weaver is an enthusiastic but naive seventeen-year-old who arrives in Bath alone on business and finds himself mysteriously drawn to the landlady’s boarding house. At the end of the story, it is implied that he becomes the landlady’s latest victim.
- The landlady is an unnamed middle-aged woman who runs a secluded boarding house in Bath. While Billy finds her only “slightly dotty,” the story heavily hints that she kills and stuffs the young men who are her guests, just as she has stuffed her dead dog and parrot.
Characters
Billy Weaver
Billy Weaver, the seventeen-year-old protagonist of the story, arrives in the city of Bath with an eager sense of adventure. As a new visitor, he has no familiarity with the town and thus trusts others to provide him with needed advice, such as the best place to find lodging. Billy is a naive character, allowing himself to be easily manipulated by the landlady. Numerous times, he finds himself noting the oddities of the landlady and the boarding house, yet he fails to truly consider the implications of the warning signs that present themselves. Billy doesn’t even initially want to stay at the landlady’s home, yet finds that he is pulled in its direction in an almost supernatural way. He finds it odd that the house is completely empty yet doesn’t ask many questions about the absence of other guests. As the landlady sizes up Billy, allowing her eyes to take in every inch of his body, he makes no comment and is seemingly not bothered by the lady’s intense scrutiny of his physical appearance.
Though he finds her “slightly dotty,” Billy fails to allow this appraisal of the landlady’s character to influence his actions. He realizes that her behavior is abnormal, yet he looks to her as a trusted source of safety, likely because of her age and gender. Billy’s sense of curiosity is an impairment to his safety; after he learns that there have only been two other young men who have been guests at the house, his desire to satisfy his sense of curiosity becomes his primary focus. As Billy continues to ruminate on his familiarity with the names in the guest book, the landlady is able to presumably slip cyanide into his tea, which tastes of “bitter almonds.” Although Billy notes the taste and even considers that the woman herself smells in some way like a hospital, he is so singularly focused on satisfying his own inquisitiveness, and is unfortunately so at ease in the woman’s presence, that he casually dismisses what should be ominous signs of danger. Although the text never explicitly states what happens to Billy, readers can assume that the poison the landlady slipped into his tea will kill him and that he will end up “stuffed,” just like the former pets she displays in her house.
The Landlady
The landlady, the antagonist in this story, initially presents as a mild and harmless middle-aged woman. She eerily seems to have been anticipating Billy’s arrival, opening the door before Billy can even remove his finger from the doorbell, and comments that she has already prepared his room. This is particularly odd considering she has only had two other guests at the boarding house, and it has been two or three years since their stays. Billy notices near the end of the story that she has an odd smell, yet she is able to victimize Billy at least in part because she presents such a nonthreatening persona. Billy considers her much like the mother of a close friend who might welcome him into her home for the Christmas holidays. Ironically, he considers her “terribly nice,” the juxtaposition of these words an accurate appraisal of how she creates a sense of trust and then uses that trust to accomplish horrific deeds. The landlady is not even given a name; this sense of anonymity thus represents a more generalized threat in placing trust in people based on inaccurate first impressions and then failing to properly consider evidence that contradicts these initial impressions.
The landlady is sinister, presumably using her taxidermy skills, which Billy admires, to keep...
(This entire section contains 929 words.)
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her former guests forever preserved in her home. She takes advantage of the naivete of youth, clearly excited that Billy is only seventeen years old; she victimizes young men whose innocence further highlights her own malicious intent. The landlady deftly manipulates the conversation with Billy, and when he begins questioning the association between the names in the guest book, she serves him the tea that tastes of “bitter almonds,” presumably because she has laced it with cyanide. The landlady smiles as the story concludes, undoubtedly because her goals have been accomplished. She has lured another young man into her home and has likely given him the poison which will kill him, thus adding another “little pet” to her collection of “stuffed” creatures.
Christopher Mulholland
Christopher Mulholland signed the landlady’s guest book, and she acknowledges that he was a guest of hers. Billy recalls that his name has been in newspapers and that he hasn’t been seen since, indicating that his disappearance likely led to a great search effort. The landlady tells Billy that Mr. Mulholland never left her home, which is startlingly suspect because of Billy’s earlier impression that there are no signs of other people living there—no hats, walking sticks, or coats can be found in the entrance. Christopher Mulholland is presumably an earlier victim of the landlady, and she indicates that he is located on the third floor. He has likely been “stuffed,” along with her other former guest, Mr. Temple.
Gregory W. Temple
Gregory Temple is another of the landlady’s likely victims. The landlady indicates that although he was older than Billy and Mr. Mulholland, at twenty-eight, he still had perfectly unblemished skin. The landlady appreciates an innocent and handsome young man as she chooses her victims, and Mr. Temple filled those requirements. Like Mr. Mulholland, he is now located on the third floor, presumably another stuffed “pet” in the landlady’s collection.
