To Trust or Not to Trust

In Roald Dahl´s short story, "The Landlady," a young man called Billy Weaver has just arrived to the city of Bath. He was looking for a place to sleep until a sign caught his eye; it had big, black and bold letters that said “Bed and Breakfast.” He was told that the Bell and Dragon will take him in but he wanted to stay at that house. He looked inside the window, it seemed lovely, there was a dog, a fireplace, and a parrot. He decided to go to the Bell and Dragon to see if it was better but before he knew it, he was pressing the bell, the door opened and an old woman came out, she seemed very nice and the price was low, Billy would stay at the hose of that Landlady. She welcomed him in and treated him like a son or grandchild.  She showed him his room and told him to sign the book. Billy  did,  and as he was signing the book he read two names, Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple, they seemed familiar almost like if they were related. He asked the landlady about both names, they had stayed there and never left. Subsequently, Billy noticed that the animals were perfectly preserved, they seem real, almost like if they were alive. The Landlady invited Billy for a cup of tea, he drank it and start to feel really weird, he couldn’t breathe. The land lady did nothing. 

I really enjoyed Dahl´s use of characterization in this story, it made me imagine how the Landlady might look like and be capable of using the textual evidence as a source to develope my imagination. As an illustration: 

This illustrates how I see the Landlady, 
like a grandma.

"She was about forty-five or fifty years old, and the moment she saw him, she gave him a warm, welcoming smile. 
“ Please come in,” she said pleasantly. She stepped aside, holding the door wide open, and Billy found himself automatically starting forward. The compulsion or, more accurately, the desire to follow after her into that house was extraordinarily strong."

In here, Dahl describes fiscal traits that help the reader understand the personality of the character. He does this by using words such "warm, welcoming smile" that help you infer how the characters personality and how it changes as you keep on reading and learn more about him or her. He uses the adequate words the helps the reader to create an illustration of the character and the environment in the story. In this story he not just focuses on the characterization of the characters, he also writes in order to appeal to the senses of the reader creating a better illustration of the environment in which the story takes place in. For example: 

This is how I imagine the street in which Billy was
walking by. 

"There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along, only a line of tall houses on each side, all of them identical. They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences. But now, even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect."

In here Dahl is appealing to the sense of sight. He creates a very detailed illustration of how the streets look like and how the character saw the houses as he walked by, how the paint from the houses facades looked like. He includes many other factors that help the reader to create an illustration of how the setting looks like by using words that approach to the sight, that what makes his stories so demonstrative and illustrative.

This is such a well written story that has a deep message that we could apply to our daily lives: we should not trust on everyone and be responsible of the decisions that you make because if you don’t you may end up in a place where people could harm you and take advantage of your innocence. I was able to perceive this because of the strong use of characterization and imagery that this short story has making it into one of my favorite stories.