The Land Lady and Examination Day

In the well-known short stories The Landlady by Roald Dahl and Examination Day by Henry Sleaser two surprising events occur. In The Landlady the surprising event is that we find out the landlady is a murderer and in Examination Day a surprising event is when Dickie is killed by the government because he has a high intelligence quotient.
One event that surprises the reader in the short story The Landlady is when the landlady is suspected of killing her previous guests and probably planning on killing her current guest. The landlady says some very weird things but at the end of the story we start to see really what the old woman is like. She is very likely to have killed and stuffed her previous guests as she had done to her pets and she is very likely to have poisoned Billy with the tea she gave him and she might kill and stuff him also. This event helped the audience understand about this main idea – appearances verses reality – because the landlady appears to be a sweet, kind old lady with some lovely pets and a warm, welcoming home. But in reality she is a murderer that stuffs her victims, hides them on the third floor of her house and is luring Billy into her trap. A quotation that helps reveal this idea is “‘Left?’ she said, arching her brows. ‘But my dear boy, he never left. He is still here. Mr Temple is also here. They’re on the third floor. Both of them together.” And also “‘Not in the least’ she said ‘I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away. Will you have another cup of tea?’ ‘No thank you’ Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.”
One event that surprises the reader in the short story Examination Day is when the young boy – Dickie is killed because of his high intelligence quotient. When Dickie Jordan turns twelve he has to sit a test, this isn’t just a normal test that anyone would take because if you do too well in this test the result could be death – this is what happened to Dickie. This event helped the audience understand the main idea – knowledge is power – because the government doesn’t want people that are smart growing up and asking questions or even taking over. The government know that knowledge is power so they think they have to kill off anyone too smart. A quotation that helps reveal this idea is “’ This is The Government Educational Service. Your son, Richard M. Jordan, Classification 600-115, has completed the Government Examination. We regret to inform you that his intelligence quotient has exceeded Government regulation, according to rule 84, Section 5 of the new code.’”
In conclusion these stories are both related to death. In both these stories you have to read in between the lines and that is what makes them great. These stories made me think how lucky I am that I am not in a close to death situation. When I got to the end of this story I felt scared that there could be murderers near my home but I also felt happy that we have a great government that wouldn’t kill off smart people because they think of them as a threat