Seventeen-year-old Billy Weaver is the polar opposite of the landlady of the Bed and Breakfast, who puts up a sweet front in order to lure Billy into her clutches. In “The Landlady,” Roald Dahl uses this juxtaposition of young and old to demonstrate the cruelty of the adult world.
Billy Weaver admires adults, in particularly the “big shots” at the business office he works at. He thinks that they are “amazing,” and tries to act like them. Billy is also very trustful, to the point of being gullible. He travels to Bath, where he is a stranger, because “Mr. Greenslade at the head office” tells him that it is “splendid.” In fact, it is his gullibility that leads to his demise later at the hands of the landlady. Billy never suspects her, though there were many signs that something wasn’t quite right. He believes that the landlady is a “kind and generous soul,” even after she made several suspicious comments, saying that Billy is “just right,” among other things.
The landlady, on the other hand, is cruel and dishonest. She uses her grandmotherly air to induce Billy to put his trust in her, only to betray it in the end by poisoning him. The landlady’s scheme also demonstrates how sly she is. Though Billy thought she was slightly dotty, the landlady is actually meticulous, agile, and organized. She has “quickly moving hands” and “red fingernails.” Hearing that Billy would like to go to bed directly instead of eating dinner with her, the landlady tells him to go downstairs to sign “the book.” She uses this opportunity to serve him poisoned tea.
Billy’s innocence causes him to only see the best in people, representing the kindness and trustfulness of youth. However, having not been in the cruel world for long, young people can be too trustful, becoming oblivious to red flags. Billy completely misses many discrepancies in the landlady’s behavior. This admittedly is his fault, for he was not cautious enough. This lack of caution might have been caused by his haste, imitated from the adults whom he had blind regard for. The landlady, wicked to the point of depravity, shows how growing up robs people of the innocence they had when they were younger.