In the short story "The Landlady" by Roald Dahl, readers do not find out the landlady's true intentions until the end. However, the author expertly plants clues hinting that something sinister is about to happen. Billy Weaver is a seventeen-year-old boy about to report to a new job in the town of Bath. While walking up the street in the cold evening, he spots a notice in a window that says "Bed and Breakfast." The first strange occurrence is that the sign seems to beckon and almost hypnotize him. The second is when the landlady is already right there at the door when he rings the bell. When she invites him in, he has a "compulsion" or "desire" to follow her into the house. She has pale lips and white skin.
In the guest book, he finds the names of two other young men who signed in...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
a long time ago. The names sound familiar to him. Dahl hints that they may have gone missing and that he might have heard about them in the news. When he has tea with the landlady, though, she insists again that they are not missing, but right upstairs. Billy finds out then that the parrot and the dog that he thought at first were alive are actually dead and stuffed. The landlady informs him that she has done it herself. By this point, readers realize that the two young men upstairs who are "both of them together" up on the third floor have been murdered and then stuffed by the landlady. She is obviously planning to do the same to Billy. His tea tastes "faintly of bitter almonds," which suggests that she may have poisoned it.
We understand, then, that the landlady is a murderous taxidermist and that she kills people because she wants to stuff them and add them to her collection. She particularly is drawn to attractive young men whose skin is without blemish. Dahl does not give an inner motivation for her behavior. He subtly suggests, however, in the hypnotizing sign, the way the landlady seems to be expecting Billy, and the way he is compelled to follow her into her house that she may have some sort of dark supernatural powers that motivate and assist her.