Where was billy from in the landlady

He is Billy’s boss back in London. It is at his behest that Billy travels to Bath to find accommodation. He is portrayed as strict and disciplined who asks for absolute best from his employees.

Two Victims

Christopher Mulholland

He was one of the entries in the logs and of the same age as Billy. In fact, Billy even remembers his namely vaguely from the newspapers.

By the text of the story, we can make out that he must have been a victim of the lady and was stuffed like her other taxidermist works. She evens says that he never left the inn, eluding to the fact that his body remained o the floor he stayed.

Gregory W. Temple

Another victim of the lady, he was older than both Mulholland and Billy. He was also talk, handsome and impressionable.

The Landlady (The Antagonist)

She is the creepy old woman who runs a quaint little inn in Bath. She is skilled at conversation and taxidermy. She has a fetish for young and vulnerable boys and stuffs them like her pets after drugging them.

On the outside, she is polite and welcoming. She is also very evasive when pressed with questions by Billy and keeps on insisting that he drinks the tea. She seems focused and cold-blooded murderer.

Billy Weaver (Protagonist)

The young man from London travels to Bath to find accommodation for his stay. He is determined to stay and drink at a pub but is captivated by a quaint little inn run by an old woman.

He is naïve and trusting and falls for the warmth of the place and its host. However, he remains sceptical of the lady who seems to have a thing for young boys and keeps evading his questions.

Her inn is also deserted even with its meagre charges and this spooks Billy. When reads the entry log, he only finds two previous visitors (both assumed dead in news). He realizes what the lady is really up to but it comes too late as he drinks the tea infused with drugs.

In the last moments of the story, he gets an honest reply from the lady who acknowledges that he is the first boy to enter her place for a couple of years.

More Articles

• The Landlady Summary
• The Landlady Analysis
• The Landlady Themes

“When something looks too good to be true it probably is”. Billy Weaver is a young traveler that is very easy going and is traveling to Bath, England. Billy walked the streets of Bath, England a big sign caught his eye that said “BED AND BREAKFAST”. The Bed and Breakfast looked so nice and welcoming. Billy decided to stay there for a few nights. The landlady is a suspicious, odd, and creepy character in “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl.

To begin, the landlady is a very suspicious character. She is always so close to Billy and seems that she is hiding something from him. It seems that the landlady trying to fool or trick Billy into something he doesn't want to be tricked into. “He pressed the bell far away in a back room he heard it ringing, and then at once - it must have been at once because he hadn’t even had time to take his finger off the bell-button - the door swung open and a woman was standing there” (2). Most people don’t answer right away, it takes a minute or less. ‘“I'm so glad you appeared,’ she said, looking earnestly into his face. ‘I was beginning to get worried”’ (3). The landlady was waiting for Billy to arrive, but Billy doesn't even know the lady. The landlady is a suspicious character, but she also has many other traits.

The Landlady

Even though the gruesome, ghastly and demonic story known as “The Landlady” ends in a disturbing way, it portrays many characteristics about the protagonist, Billy. There are numerous ways to characterize Billy, a 17-year-old kid on his first business trip in the strange city of Bath, England. Billy begins his journey to a hotel known as the Bell and Dragon but stumbles to a halt when he sees a seemingly cozy bed and breakfast that catches his eye. For a few pages everything seems great; unfortunately for Billy, he has some flaws which ultimately lead to his shocking death at the hands of a demented landlady. These are curiosity, a tendency to miss important clues, and gullibility.

The gullible nature of Billy Weaver is quite interesting as he does not show any sign of stupidity, but his gullible state got the best of him. There are numerous reasons to portray the nature of Billy as abnormal.The first sign shown by Billy is when he figures out the cost of staying at the Bed and Breakfast for a night. In the passage, it states “Five and sixpence a night, including breakfast” (Dahl 2). He subsequently says it was “fantastically cheap” (Dahl 2). but he never thought of the consequences he would face or think why it was so cheap, as many places would charge twice as much. This shows his gullible state of mind at the extremes. Billy Weaver finally asks about how this cheap of a place did not get lots of customers and she answered: “I’m inclined to be

The text shown above is just an extract. Only members can read the full content.

Get access to the full Study Guide.

As a member of PrimeStudyGuides.com, you get access to all of the content.

Sign up now

Already a member? Log in

Billy Weaver, the story’s protagonist, is an enthusiastic and innocent seventeen-year-old boy. When Billy arrives in the city of Bath—keen to make his way in the business world—his first task is to find lodgings for the night. He happens upon a charming Bed and Breakfast, and is welcomed inside by the friendly landlady there. Feeling very pleased with himself for finding such comfortable and cheap lodgings, Billy misses important clues and warnings about the landlady’s true nature. Billy is curious but naïve. He finds it strange, for example, that there are no other guests staying at the Bed and Breakfast, but trusts the landlady’s peculiar explanation. He also notices that there have only been two previous entries in the visitors’ book—Christopher Mulholland and Gregory W. Temple—and, curiously, he recognizes both names. Although he is very keen to determine why, he is easily fooled and distracted by the landlady during his search for truth. Ultimately, the sweet-looking landlady is able to take advantage of poor Billy because his innocent and trusting nature prevents him from suspecting that things might not be as they seem. Although the story’s cliffhanger does not explicitly reveal Billy’s fate, it is implied that the landlady poisons his tea so that she can kill Billy and stuff him, just as she does to her pets.