This passage was written by a 9th grader
Character
In Roald Dahl’s The Landlady, Dahl focuses on two main characters in the story. The first, Bill Weaver, is the protagonist of the story. Dahl quickly introduces Weaver as the protagonist by allowing the reader to follow him around on his “journey” and allow the reader to comprehend the character’s thoughts. Dahl also provides more information on Weaver than any other character in the story. For example, Dahl provides the following sentence to get a better understanding about the character: “Billy was seventeen years old. He was wearing a new navy-blue overcoat, a new brown trilby hat, and a new brown suit, and he was feeling fine.” The reader gets a chance to create a visual of the character and even has insight into the character’s feelings. The antagonist of this story is the landlady that Billy stays with. She can be described as the antagonist because of her desire to kill Billy Weaver. When Bill asks if any other people besides him had stayed in her Bed and Breakfast, the landlady replies, “No, my dear. Only you.” The fact that she wants to kill Billy Weaver is seen when Billy remarks to himself, “The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.” The bitter almond taste can be presumed to be cyanide, a poisonous liquid. Lastly, a character that supports (supporting character) the story is the porter Billy meets when he arrives in Bath. Dahl describes the porter as a supporting character when the porter tells Billy, “Try the Bell and Dragon. They might take you in. It’s about a quarter of a mile along the other side.” If the porter had not told him to go towards the Bell and Dragon, Billy may have gone in the opposite direction, and may never have found the Bed and Breakfast.