The Characters

There are two principal characters in the story 'The Landlady' - the landlady herself, and Billy Weaver.
Billy is a 17-year old boy who had just arrived to Bath where he was going to work. He was wearing a new-blue overcoat, a new brown hat and a new brown suit. He is tall, handsome and young, he had beautiful white teeth. He seems to be a nice, harmless, optimistic person. The landlady is about forty-five or fifty years old. She had a round pink face, very gentle blue eyes, pale lips, small, white and quickly moving hands and red finger-nails. She was friendly and had welcoming manners. She seemed to be kind, nice, generous and harmless, but a little crazy. She was a taxidermist.

Plot summary The story focuses on a 17-year old boy named Billy Weaver who has just stepped into the world of work. Arriving in Bath for a business trip, he looks for a place to stay, and is recommended to the Bell and Dragon. While walking briskly, he comes upon a bed and breakfast sign which somehow hypnotizes him into checking out the boarding house. He presses the doorbell, and before he can lift his finger from the bell-button, the door opens and a middle-aged landlady appears. She treats him generously, giving him a floor of his own to stay on, and charging him much less than he expected. However, she also emits a sense of spookiness, which, though apparently Billy does not notice, appears quite evident to the reader. In the inn's guestbook, he sees that only two other guests have stayed thereone older, the other younger, and both having arrived earlier than 2 years prior. Billy finds the names vaguely familiar from the newspaper, and on further reflection recalls that they "were both famous for the same thing." Suspicion continues to generate in the reader when the landlady makes a comment about one of the two boys in past tense, to which Billy comments that he must have only left recently. The landlady replies that both of the guests are still residing at the inn. Billy then notices that the dog by the fireplace and the parrot he had noticed earlier were stuffed as he looks closer and touches the dog to examine it. The landlady says that she herself was the taxidermist, and he is impressed. She then tells him, "I stuff all my pets myself," and offers him more tea. Billy refuses because the tea "tasted faintly of bitter almonds". The author ends the story at its climax; the reader is left to infer what happens to Billy Weaver from the hints provided in the story. The Supposed Ending Although it is never said in the story, the most common guess from most readers is inferred when the character, "Billy", mentions that his tea has a "bitter almond" taste which is an important clue. In many suspense and mystery stories, potassium cyanide is said to have a "bitter almond" taste, such as the one Billy describes. Knowing this, the reader can guess that the woman will poison Billy, and afterwards will stuff him as she did to the animals and the other two guests.

1. What was Billy Weaver doing in the City of Bath? 2. He was directed to the 'Bell and Dragon' pub for accommodation. Why didn't he stay there? 3. What was strange about the landlady when he rang on the door bell? 4. What was Billy's first impression a) of the house and b) of the landlady? 5. How many other guests were there? 6. Why did the landlady ask him to go to the sitting-room after he'd unpacked his bag? 7. What did Billy find disturbing about the guest book? 8. When had the other guests checked in? 9. What was strange about the animals in the sitting-room? 10. What do you think happened to the other guests whose names Billy had seen?

WRITING
Either write a paragraph (between 70 and 100 words) as if continuing the story telling what you think happened next Or Write about what you think happened next and what the consequences of that would be, and support what you say by referring to evidence in the story. (About 90 words)
(For example.. I think the landlady is going to kill Billy because.

OPINIONS ON THE STORY

I think the story deals well with psychology of a person, which in this case is the landlady. It might be that after losing her son, she did not come out of her house to mix around with other people. Sadly, she was someone who could not control her feelings of loneliness and sorrow. Since she had no one to support her, these feelings ultimately caused her to be mad. Since she was the quiet psycho type who only stayed at home, nobody else knew about her madness and could never guess she killed animals and young men to make her company. _____________________________________ I quite have some pity on the landlady. She got mad because she was lonely and she had no friends. We all should not be like her. We should find someone we trust to talk to about our problems. Of course we still keep some secrets to ourselves, but it is never good to keep everything to ourselves. It might explode. Sometimes we have to talk it out. If not, we can get mad like the landlady __________________________________________ For me, the Landlady can be seen as kind and generous but with a motive - to satisfy her fetish of embalming everything that she sees beautiful - such as the dog, the parrot and of course, the three handsome young men that are unfortunate enough to fall into her trap. _____________________________________ I think that the landlady is a psychotic lady who, because of her loneliness and sadness, kills her guests because she thinks that is the only way her 'companions' will stay by her side ______________________________ I say that apart from being a psychotic murderer, the landlady can also be a mad scientist who is conducting an experiment and her 'specimens' are her guests. ____________________________________ In my opinion, this story is about how we can never judge a person just by seeing how she/he acts. First impression is not always the right impression of a person, but it does give us some ideas of how the person is like. Unfortunately, in Billy's case, it is this impression that will lead him to his death.