Billy Weaver Character Analysis in The Landlady (Essay Sample)

The term, suspense, refers to the foreshadowing experienced by both the audience and narrator(protagonist or main character) of a certain story. In “The Landlady,” a seventeen-year old boy visits a hotel that is owned by a Landlady. During the beginning, the narrator doesn´t feel devious about the lady until the end when he realizes that the lady already killed two of her previous visitors and he is the current victim. The suspenseful twists and perspective of Billy both cause contradicting events due to his assuminations of the Landlady. Roald Dahl´’s choice to tell the story using Billy’s limited perspective creates suspense for the reader in order to make the story seem more intriguing because of Billy’s frequently asked “tough” questions, his misinterpretations of reality, and his descriptions of his surroundings.

First of all, Billy´s frequent questions are an example of the suspense the author creates using Billy´s limited perspective. In this story, Billy asks himself Tough Questions(a Notice & Note Signpost) during the course of the plot and asks these questions to make him think of possible answers. Furthermore, Billy asks these questions as a result of his suspiciousness of the Landlady’s actions. For instance, “Was he a boy at school? No. Was it one of his sister’s numerous young men, perhaps, or a friend of his father’s?” This quote conveys the tough questions asked by Billy and how it is what causes the reader to wonder why these questions are being asked. Furthermore, these questions contribute to the progression of the overall plot and provide context to how the narrator feels about the Landlady. Billy’s questions express that he feels suspicious of his surroundings and makes the reader feel that the Landlady is somehow involved. Furthermore, the reader's understanding of the overall situation is improved based on the narrator's observations and questions. This concludes that Billy´s ¨tough questions¨ are one of the examples that cause suspense in the reader's mind because the questions provide an overall feeling to the reader about the plot and improves the reader´s general understanding of all characters. This concludes that Billy’s frequently asked questions did make the story suspenseful and allowed the reader to understand more about the context and how there is definitely something dubious if the main character is finding the matter doubtful.

Next, Billy’s misinterpretations of reality are an example of the suspense the author creates using Billy’s perspective. Similarly, Billy sometimes assumes information about the Landlady based on her actions and they turn out to be inaccurate, which is clearly expressed at the end of the text. He even realizes that his assuminations of what were invalid was the overall problem which caused him to be poisoned at the end by the Landlady. For example,““Now, the fact that his landlady appeared to be slightly off her rocker didn’t worry Billy in the least. After all, she was not only harmless – there was no question about that – but she was also quite obviously a kind and generous soul.``The quote proclaims that at first, the author states that the narrator, Billy, didn’t feel that dubious towards the Landlady’s amiable gestures. The way Billy assumes the personality of the Landlady proves his misinterpretations of reality and how his assuminations of the woman immensely contradicted when he realized what her true nature was at the end. This concludes that Billy’s misinterpretations of reality allow the reader to become more hooked into the story(due to all of the cliff-hangers) and provide some context for the reader to understand the main character a little more.

In this text, the author conveys suspense through the descriptions of Billy’s surroundings as well. Moreover, when the author describes how the tea felt at the end of the story through Billy’s perspective, Billy claimed that the Landlady smelt like the corridors of a hospital and described some peculiar features about the tea, which provided some context for the reader to think that the tea was actually poisoned. According to the text,““Now and again, he caught a whiff of a peculiar smell that seemed to emanate directly from her person. It was not in the least unpleasant, and it reminded him – well, he wasn’t quite sure what it reminded him of. Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?”The narrator’s descriptions of the tea the Landlady served him provides a context or description to the intentions or purposes of why the Landlady asked Billy to drink the tea. Descriptions of the surroundings told by Billy allowed the reader to expand the knowledge of everyone’s actions and intentions beyond their actions in the story. This concludes that Billy’s descriptions of his surroundings allowed the reader to make inferences based on the text and continued to fascinate the reader while reading.

Therefore,  this concludes that Roald Dahl´’s choice to tell the story using Billy’s limited perspective creates suspense for the reader in order to make the story seem more intriguing. Furthermore, Billy’s frequently asked “tough” questions is a reason for the author’s decision of including suspense since the tough questions asked by the main character convey how much the main character knows already and provides context to what the main character wants to know. Billy’s misinterpretations of reality is also an example of a reason since his assumptions of the Landlady enable the reader to understand the effects of his thinking and the plot of the story as well. The descriptions of Billy’s surroundings contribute to the overall suspense in the text too as the way he describes everything allows the reader to picture what Billy is going through. The fact that Billy was deceived unknowingly based on a single assumption cost his life to the Landlady and didn’t provide solutions to his problems. No one should act like Billy in these kinds of circumstances and should be more aware of their surroundings.