Roald Dahl`s Book The Landlady

Introduction: Roald Dahl was born in the city of Wales, Great Britain on September 16, 1916. He had Norwegian parents. His mother had to raise him because his father passed away when he was younger. Background: He went to boarding school, and he did not like it. It gave him ideas for the stories he wrote later. When he left school, he went to work for the Shell Oil Company in Africa until the WWI outbreak occurred. After that, he signed up to work with the Royal Air Force. He got hurt in the battle and had to go home. He was sent to Washington D.C. to work as an attache. He started his writing career on an accident. He was interviewed for an article about the war he was in. His writing was put in the newspaper, and then he was signed up to write even more articles. Thesis statement: He wrote his first children’s book in 1943, The Gremlins. It was intended to be a movie from Walt Disney. The movie wasn’t made so he started writing adult fiction. He did not write another children's story until the 1960s. At that time, he became a father. He made stories for his children. This created the stories of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James the Giant Peach. He later wrote twenty-one children’s books including The BFG, Matilda, and The Witches. They were all turned into movies. Roald Dahl passed away on November 23, 1990,

History

Topic sentence: Roald Dahl was born during the World War I time period. World War I was a war that was fought between 1914 and 1918. World War I was a fight between the Allied and Central powers. The most important countries of the allied powers were Russia, France, and Britain. The main countries of the Central Powers are Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Empire. Most of the war was fought in Europe by the western and eastern fronts. The western front went from Belgium to Switzerland. The eastern front was between Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Russia, and Romania. Commentary: There were plenty of causes for the war but the main reason was because of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Some other important battles during the war were the Battle of the Somme, First Battle of the Marne, Battle of Gallipoli, Battle of Tannenberg, and the Battle of Verdun. The war was over on November 11, 1918, when Germany and the Allies signed the Treaty of Versailles.

Plot

Topic sentence: The Landlady is a short story by Roald Dahl. Evidence & citing: The story is about a businessman named Billy who was seventeen years old who came from London. He was headed to a small city named Bath in England to do his job. The job was never specified. He had to find a place to sleep at for the night. Commentary: His eyes are caught by a bed and breakfast sign in the window of one of the houses he passes. He also saw a parrot and a dachshund by the fireplace which made him want to go there even more. He rings the doorbell, and a middle-aged woman opens it. She invites him in and offers him very cheap rent. She was overly excited when she saw him. She told him she has not had a guest in a long time. When went downstairs to go sign the guestbook, he sees two names he notices. They were just two names in the book. They names in the book were two years old. He remembered that one of the names in the book was a schoolboy who had disappeared. The landlady came back smelling like almonds and couch leather. The landlady told him it was someone else. He asks her if the last two guests were gone, and she says that both of them are still here but they were on the fourth floor. Billy changed the subject by trying to talk about The Landlady’s parrot, and he just saw that it wasn’t alive but it was stuffed. The landlady reveals that she herself stuffed the bird, and as she is a taxidermist she stuffs all her own pets. Billy also realizes the dog was stuffed too. He also realizes that his tea was bitter and tasted like almonds. He asked the landlady again, “Haven’t there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years.” She gave him a smile and replied as, “No, my dear. Only you'.

Character Analysis

Topic sentence: Billy Weaver is a seventeen-year-old from London. He travels to Bath so he can fulfill his new position at the company he works for. Dedicated to what he sees as the ideal of success in the business world, Billy is a person that describes innocence who is drawn by a dangerous and unknown force, and who remains absent to the clues that build up around him as his evening with the landlady goes on. He does not find the landlady's oddness to be weird, and he does not connect the various clues,(her strange odor, a bitter taste to the tea) to a need for concern. Although he does struggle to connect the Mulholland and Temple names to a past event that was covered in the newspapers, he remains unaware of the very dangerous threat to his life as the story continues. 

Literary Devices

Topic sentence: Roald Dahl uses many literary devices to create suspense in his stories. A literary device he uses is imagery. 'The air was deadly cold and the wind was a flat blade of ice on his cheek.' Commentary: He uses imagery to describe how characters look. He also uses foreshadowing. He uses foreshadowing to create suspense in the story. 'The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds.” Commentary: This quote shows foreshadowing because it gives the reader an idea that the tea might contain something dangerous. Another literary device he uses is alliteration. 'Bed and breakfast, porches and pillars and four or five steps'. Commentary: This quote shows alliteration because it has an occurrence of the same sound. Evidence & citing: He also uses mood as a literary device. “The air was deadly cold; the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks. Commentary: This quote describes the mood of the weather outside. These literary devices help because it describes things in an easier way.

Theme

Topic sentence: The theme of The Landlady is deception. The story is about a young man who is going on a trip to handle some business. He is they type of person you can easily persuade to do something. What persuaded him to go into this bed and breakfast was a sign on the house that 'hypnotized him', and in the same way, he booked the room noticing that only two people had been there before. Commentary: We know as readers that the place is spooky and dangerous and that the landlady is up to something. In the end of the story, he was killed and stuffed just like the other two guests that was at the house two years ago. 

References 

1. Graham , John . Smith , Royde . Showalter , Dennis . First World War . Britannica , 21 July . 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I . Accessed 30 August 2019.
2. Dahl , Roald. “The Landlady”. Teachingenglish.org. 2019 , https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/landlady_text.pdf. Accessed 13 August 2019.
3. 'The Landlady'.' Short Stories for Students, edited by Matthew Derda, vol. 42, Gale, 2016. Literature Resource Center, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1430008441/LitRC?u=lap08pkwy&sid=LitRC&xid=549b70af. Accessed 16 Sept. 2019.
4. Rutledge, Walker. 'Roald Dahl: Overview.' Twentieth-Century Young Adult Writers, edited by Laura Standley Berger, St. James Press, 1994. Twentieth-Century Writers Series. Literature Resource Center, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420002053/LitRC?u=lap08pkwy&sid=LitRC&xid=2c989d43. Accessed 17 Sept. 2019.
5. Mehmi, Suneel S. 'Understanding the Significance and Purpose of Violence in the Short Stories of Roald Dahl.' Short Story Criticism, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 252, Gale, 2018. Literature Resource Center, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420124449/LitRC?u=lap08pkwy&sid=LitRC&xid=8b9add14. Accessed 17 Sept. 2019. Originally published in PsyArt, 14 June 2014.