The Plot Analysis in the Landlady

(by Ganjar Maulana, Nurrizal Ramdani, Ali Topan)

Landlady is a short story by Roald Dahl. The story is about the young successful businessman man, Billy Weaver, who went to the small city called Bath to do his job. Unfortunately, he gets into the wrong place and that make him getting into trouble. The protagonist in this story is Billy Weaver, and the antagonist is the landlady.

Based on event sequences, this story can be categorized as progressive because the author tells the story from the beginning to the end chronologically. This story hasn’t any flashback, Medias res, and foreshadowing.

Based on quantity, this story is used a parallel plot because the author made the storyline linked each other from the beginning of the story until the end of it.

Based on quantity, this story is dense because the main plot doesn’t have a gap to imply another plot.

Below are the brief explanations of the story plot according the plot scheme including exposition, rising action, conflict, climax, falling action, and resolution:

Exposition:

The story was started when the main character, Billy Weaver, came to Bath for the business purpose. It was about 9 p.m. when he arrived in Bath, so he had to find a place for sleep. Then, the porter recommended him to stay at Bell and Dragon Hotel. The exposition ends when he walked through the city to find the Bell and Dragon.

In this part, the author tells the readers about Billy’s characteristic. He was seventeen years old, but he has become a successful businessman. All things that he wore that day were brisk as it was a common characteristic of a successful businessman at that time.

Rising action:

The story continued when Billy walked to the Bell and Dragon. He suddenly saw a boarding house with a big sign “BED AND BREAKFAST”. After a while, it seems that he was hypnotized when he decided to sleep at that boarding house although he preferred to sleep at pub a minute before. After that, when Billy press the bell, the Landlady suddenly appear. It is strange becuse normally when you ring the bell, you have at least a half minute’s wait before the door opens.

Conflict:

The conflict that occurred in this story is “man against man” conflict between Billy and the landlady. Since he came to landlady’s house, he felt that there was something wrong with the landlady. Although she always showed her politeness, Billy still curious with everything that the landlady did.

Climax:

The climax of this story is when Billy saw two names in the guest book. All of them are the landlady’s victim. When Billy ask about them, the Landlady always interrupt him, as if there was something that she hide from him.

"Wait just a minute. Mul­holland . . Christopher Mulholland . . . wasn't that the name of the Eton schoolboy who was on a wal­king­tour through the West Country, and then all of a sudden . . . "

"Milk?" she said. "And sugar?"

"Yes, please. And then all of a sudden ..."

"Eton! schoolboy?" she said. "Oh no, my dear, that can't possibly be right because my Mr Mulholland was certainly not an Eton schoolboy when he came to me. He was a Cambridge undergraduate. Come over here now and sit next to me and warm yourself in front of this lovely fire. Come on. Your tea's all ready for you."

Then, she gave Billy a cup of tea which smells like almond. Actually, it is a cyanide poison because almond smell is a characteristic of cyanide. Finally, the landlady told him that the dachshund and the parrot are all embalmed dead animals.

Resolution:

In the end, the landlady told Billy that he was the only guest who came to her house after two persons in the guest book.

The final part of this story can be categorized as opened, because the author let the readers guests the resolution by themselves.