Adulthood vs. Innocence Theme Analysis

In much of Roald Dahl’s children’s literature, childhood is portrayed as antagonistic to adulthood. Many stories feature cruel adults who inflict their evil ways upon innocent children. Similarly, in “The Landlady,” a wicked lady manipulates Billy Weaver, who is just seventeen years old. Through this generational conflict, Dahl depicts the cruelty of the adult world, highlighting the tragic inevitability of growing up, and the loss of innocence that this transition requires.

Billy—a young man on the cusp of adulthood—represents purity and innocence. Seventeen-year-old Billy is remarkably trusting of the adults in his life. Firstly, he follows his superior’s instructions to travel to Bath, find lodgings, and pursue work there. He looks up to the adults in his life, particularly to the business “big shots,” whom he admires for being “brisk” and “successful.” Later, Billy puts faith in the landlady at the Bed and Breakfast, assuming that she is sweet and generous, and that she has his best interests at heart. She becomes a sort of mother or grandmother figure, indulging and fussing over him: “It's such a comfort to have a hot water-bottle in a strange bed with clean sheets […] you may light the gas fire at any time if you feel chilly.” His innocence and naivety prevent him from being suspicious of her unusual behavior, particularly when she explains that she is a “teeny weeny bit choosy” about her guests. Billy kindheartedly puts her strangeness down to loneliness: “He guessed that she had probably lost a son in the war, or something like that, and had never gotten over it.” Dahl’s depiction of Billy illustrates the inherent goodness and trustworthiness in young people because he sees the best in the landlady, despite her peculiarities. On the other hand, Dahl depicts how Billy is naively oblivious to the blaring warnings throughout his evening with the landlady. This suggests that Billy should have been more responsible for his own safety and wellbeing, and that his dreadful demise is partly his own fault for not being more cautious. Indeed, his blind admiration for adults leads him to imitate his role models’ “briskness.” It is this haste when choosing the Bed and Breakfast that causes him to miss important clues about the landlady’s true nature. Billy’s age places him somewhere between childhood and adulthood and therefore it is never confirmed whether Billy is ultimately punished for his naivety, or whether he remains an innocent victim. In a way, the story demonstrates how people are all victims of adulthood; growing up inevitably requires a loss of innocence.

In contrast to Billy, the landlady represents the cruel and corrupt nature of the adult world. She intentionally uses her age to lull Billy into a false sense of security, betraying the trust he puts in her. She seems harmless, generous, and maternal, a performance that she has carefully constructed in order to ensnare the young men who enter her home. It remains ambivalent whether the landlady is actually “dotty,” or whether this is also part of her performance, although her terrifying wickedness would suggest that she is mad. It is clear, however, that the landlady is capable, precise, and organized. The description of her hands and nails, for example, reveals how agile and put together she is: “she had small, white, quickly moving hands, and red finger-nails.” She wastes no time ensuring that she will be able to poison Billy the very same night he arrives, cunningly asking him to sign the guestbook: “would you be kind enough to pop into the sitting-room on the ground floor and sign the book?” Of course, this is a ruse to get him downstairs where she has an opportunity to serve him some poisoned tea. Once Billy is within her clutches, she continues to mislead him by controlling the conversation—dodging his questions, and interrupting when it is convenient for her. Indeed, the landlady is motivated entirely by control. Her interest in Billy stems from a warped and wicked motive to preserve her victims in an eternal state of innocence. She delights in the fact that Billy is seventeen, exclaiming, “Oh, it’s the perfect age.” Similarly, when describing Gregory Temple—another one of her victims—she explains that although he was a bit older, she “never would have guessed” because his “skin was just like a baby’s.” The landlady is only interested in young men because, for her, they represent innocence and purity. She takes great pleasure in ensuring that they never grow up, maintaining their youth by killing and preserving their bodies. It is possible that the landlady’s taxidermy project is motivated by a desire overcome the loneliness that many parents experience when their children leave home. Through ensuring that Billy and the other men can never leave, the landlady maintains her absolute control over them. The fact that the landlady must murder those whom she wants to keep innocent, however, implies that the preservation of innocence is ultimately both impossible and unnatural.

In “The Landlady,” childhood and adulthood are positioned in opposition to one another through the conflict between Billy and the landlady. While the former represents innocence, goodness, hope, and youthfulness, the latter represents power, control, and cruelty. Billy’s adolescence, however, complicates this dichotomy, as his age places him somewhere between childhood and adulthood. Through this tension, Dahl draws attention to the ways in which the young are robbed of their childhood and innocence by an urgent necessity to be prepared for the cruelty of adulthood and the adult world. It’s also worth noting how the specter of World War II hangs over “The Landlady”: written in a post-war context, Dahl demonstrates how the horror of war robbed society of its innocence, and younger generations of their childhoods. Ultimately, “The Landlady” is a tragic story about growing up in a cruel and dangerous modern world.