Roald Dahl's Short Story 'The Landlady'

“A serial murderer’s compulsion to kill may be likened to an addiction, not only to the crime itself but also to a specific way of life” (Dolan 51). Many serial killers have a certain type of person that they want to kill and a way to kill them. This was shown in Roald Dahl’s short story “The Landlady”. The landlady used potassium cyanide, a well known poison that tastes like sour almonds, to kill her victim and then after they were dead stuffed them. Unfortunately, Billy Weaver was the victim for that painful and upsetting death. Even though “The Landlady” was not a true story, the Landlady goes through many phases, specifically the wooing and the totem phase, that let her carry through the plan of killing Billy Weaver, in the way she so desires to.

The wooing phase is when “organized serial killers capture their victims by winning their confidence and luring them into a trap” (Dolan 53). In the landlady, the landlady owned a bed and breakfast which is the first reason why Billy even went to meet the landlady. The landlady was very clever and made sure that when a gullible person like Billy comes around that the place looks nice: “Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself; and all in all, it looked to him as though it would be a pretty decent house to stay in” (Dahl 1). This shows that the landlady knew what she was doing and made sure that the place looked trustable and easy to lure someone into. Likewise, the landlady went through the wooing phase by making sure that her bed and breakfast looked appealing to any person, like Billy. To reiterate, in Roald Dahl’s story “The Landlady”, the landlady clearly goes through the wooing phase due to the fact that she makes sure her house is a great place for any person off of the street to want to stay