Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Landlady

In Roald Dahl’s realistic fiction story “The Landlady” Billy Weaver is looking for a place to stay while he is visiting a place named Bath. When he decides to stay at a boarding house he meets the landlady. He believes that the landlady is just a harmless old lady, but he later learns that trusting people by how they are on the outside is dangerous. Roald Dahl uses foreshadowing and sensory details to show that trusting someone before knowing them can be dangerous. Impacting Billy Weaver the most, trust is the main issue in “The Landlady”. Because Billy Weaver judges the landlady by how she is on the outside, he puts himself in danger. For example, when he meets the landlady at first he is not suspicious when he should have been. He
calls her kind and gentle soul which shows he trusts her. Another thing is he trusts her because of her appearance. In the story it describes her as “she had a round pink face and very gentle blue eyes”(140). this shows that he only trusted her because of her appearance Even if she looked nice and harmless he still was not suspicious after she does many odd things. For example, when he knocks on the door she pops out immediately and when this happens he even thinks to himself that it is unusual. Another thing she does is mysteriously attract him to her boarding house. It says “compelling him forcing him to stay where he was and not walk away from that house”(100). Another thing is when she reveals she stuffed her animals he does not change his thoughts he still trusts her. Throughout the story the Roald Dahl also uses foreshadowing and sensory details to show the theme. Roald Dahl shows how dangerous judging someone by their cover can be by using foreshadowing and word choice. The small detail, “The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds”, foreshadows that he is going to die because even though the text doesn’t say it, bitter almonds is the taste of cyanide(480). It shows that trusting her was a mistake even though she acted kind and looked harmless. Another example is Foreshadowing isn’t the only way he develops the idea. He also uses detailed word choice to show how evil people can be. “we don’t want to go breaking any laws at this stage in the proceedings, do we?” uses word choice to show that there are multiple stages to her “proceedings” and she will break laws in a stage later on. This shows that even the nicest people who help can be evil enough to break laws and try and kill people. Another example when Billy Weaver describes the landlady’s smell, “Pickled walnuts? New leather? Or was it the corridors of a hospital?” uses specific word choice to show that(380).