Anonymity vs. Community Theme Analysis

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the city was conceptualized as a negative place. Home to immorality and corruption, the urban landscape symbolized a loss of tradition and the degradation of community values. Roald Dahl addresses this moral panic in “The Landlady” by exploring the moral repercussions of the anonymity provided by modern city life. Dahl depicts the dangerous consequences of seclusion and isolation, revealing that the moral fabric of society relies upon community and connectedness.

In “The Landlady,” Dahl depicts how anonymity is a consequence of the push towards city life. The ease with which Billy Weaver travels between cities—London to Bath—represents the connectedness of modern society. Paradoxically, Billy is decidedly unconnected in Bath; it his first time in the city and he doesn’t “know anyone who live[s] there.” Billy embodies anonymity in modern society. Not only is he anonymous in the literal sense—no one in Bath knows who he is—but he is also anonymous in that he lacks a unique identity of his own. Just like the “successful businessmen” he admires, he wears a suit, blends in with the crowd, and does “everything briskly.” Furthermore, he unquestioningly followed the instructions of “Mr. Greenslade at the Head Office” when moving to a new city, despite not having a network there. Anonymity is apparent in the cityscape itself when Billy passes “a line of tall houses on each side, all of them identical.” Like the buildings, Billy dresses and behaves identically to the “successful businessmen” he emulates. Although Billy’s job is not specified, the descriptions surrounding it are distinctly capitalist: “Branch Manager,” “Head Office,” “successful businessmen,” and “The big shots.” For Billy, success means working hard, being busy, and making money. On the one hand, Billy’s career promises to connect him with a network of important people and interesting places. On the other, it requires him to be alone in a new city. Indeed, the business world is very individualistic, requiring every aspiring “big shot” to compete against their colleagues; it is likely that there are a multitude of other eager young men like Billy, ready to take his spot on the corporate ladder, should he fail. Thus, Dahl reveals the paradox of modernity and globalization, which simultaneously increase interconnectivity, as well as perpetuating isolation, anonymity and individualism.

The tension between community and anonymity reveals the dangers of such isolation in modern society. While the Bell and Dragon pub represents community, the landlady’s Bed and Breakfast represents isolation and anonymity. The narrator traces Billy’s decision-making process while he chooses whether to stay in the pub or the Bed and Breakfast. The narrator describes how the pub would be more sociable: “a pub would be more congenial […] there would be beer and darts in the evenings, and lots of people to talk to.” In contrast, the Bed and Breakfast appears to offer comfort, privacy, peace, and quiet. It is Billy’s isolation in Bath that makes the latter option more attractive to him, and leads him to choose the landlady’s Bed and Breakfast. The tension between community and isolation continues when the landlady welcomes Billy into her home. The description of her looking “exactly like the mother of one's best school-friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays,” evokes feelings of safety, familiarity, and community. However, upon entering the Bed and Breakfast, Billy notices “there were no other hats or coats in the hall. There were no umbrellas, no walking-sticks-nothing”. Contrary to spending the holidays with a gathering of loved ones, Billy realizes that he is completely alone in the house with the landlady when she happily declares, “We have it all to ourselves.” Billy finds this a little peculiar, but innocently puts it down to the landlady being a bit “dotty.” Ironically, it seems that isolation and loneliness are both the cause of the landlady’s cruelty and madness, and also the reason she continues to get away with her wicked crimes. When she explains, “I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away,” the landlady indicates her desperate need for company, yet her seclusion from society means that nobody has discovered that she is the murderer of the two missing men. The landlady remains nameless herself throughout the story, representing her anonymity and the danger and isolation that Billy faces within her home. Like Christopher Mulholland and Gregory W. Temple, Billy faces an eternity of isolation once he has been stuffed and displayed by the landlady. When Billy reads the list of the landlady’s previous two guests, their names seem familiar, and he later remembers that they had both been in the news after going missing. Here, the newspaper reports serve as a symbol of the connectedness of community and its shared values. By contrast, the landlady lives in a vacuum, detached from the moral fabric of ordinary society. Ultimately, Dahl juxtaposes community with anonymity, presenting the former as “congenial,” and the latter as dangerous.

“The Landlady” is a cautionary tale about the breakdown of community structures in modern society. In contrast to the pub—which represents tradition and community—the landlady’s lodgings are isolated and disconnected, and the landlady herself is lonely and anonymous. The fact that nobody has discovered that she is responsible for the men reported missing in the papers indicates how easily criminality and corruption can go unnoticed—and unpunished—within the urban environment. Through Billy’s demise, Dahl highlights the importance of shared values, societal cohesiveness, and community.