“The Landlady” Text-

Dependent and Discussion

Questions
Issa review.
For each question you missed, go back and write the explanation for why the right answer is
right, and explain why the answer you chose is wrong.
 #1 Theme

 Theme just means “what the text was about”, similar to central or main idea. Often, the theme includes
the “lesson” or “moral” of the story, but it would have to be a lesson that was demonstrated in the text.
Inferred “lessons” (lessons we could infer but did not directly come from events in the story) would need to
be excluded from your answer choice.
 Correct answer: B “You never truly know the dark motives that drive people.”
 The entire point of this story is that the landlady seems so sweet and generous, but secretly she is a serial killer.
Because this actually took place in the story, we can choose this answer as the theme. Billy truly did not know the
landlady’s dark motives.
 Wrong:
 A “Never accept anything that you don’t know the contents of”. We know that this is a smart lesson we can infer
from the story, but this did not happen. Billy did accept something he did not know the contents of.
 C “Don’t be cheap when it comes to your lodging”. We can also infer this lesson from the text, but this also did not
happen. Billy was cheap and chose the convenient bed and breakfast over the Bell and Dragon pub.
 D “It is wise to be suspicious of everyone you meet”. Again, we can most definitely infer this, but it did not actually
happen. Billy did not regard the landlady with enough suspicion.
 #2 Citing evidence

 If the answer in #1 was “You never know the dark motives that drive people”, the answer choice
for #2 needs to show that:
 1)Billy does not know the landlady’s inner self
 2) The landlady has dark motives that drive her
 The best answer, then, is D “’Not in the least,’ she said. ‘I stuff all my little pets myself when they
pass away. Will you have another cup of tea?”
 This shows that Billy is unaware he is sitting with a maniac who is poisoning him has he sits there, and this also
shows that the landlady is secretly treacherous under her sweet façade
 All the others are incorrect because they are missing one of the two points above: they either show
Billy knowing that the landlady is weird, or they do not indicate that the landlady has dark motives.
#3 Word meaning

 If you missed this, you might be a dum-dum, since “compulsion” was not only defined for
you in the text, but you had to define in for your foldable house, and I told you in class that
“compel” is the verb form of “compulsion”.
#4 Citing evidence

 If “compelling” means “to urge someone to do something”, you need an answer choice
that reflects this
 The best answer is D “forcing him to stay where he was and not to walk away from that
house”. As you recall in the story, Billy feels compelled to go into the bed and breakfast
when he looks at the notice that says BED AND BREAKFAST. He says that each word is like
a black eye staring at him, and the sign somehow hypnotizes him to go inside
 All of the other quotes are from the same passage of the text where we pulled the right
answer, but none of them describe Billy feeling compelled to go in the house
 #5 Complex character development

 Questions like this require that you remember things that happened in the story, and that you understood
what you read in the first place. IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE WITH THESE KINDS OF QUESTIONS, annotating the text
as you go is your best bet for getting them right.
 The best answer is C “He views her as abnormal continually throughout the text”. Abnormal means
“weird”, and Billy definitely claims more than once throughout the text that the landlady is “dotty” or “off
her rocker.”
 Wrong:
 A “He initially finds her odd but eventually grows to understand her”. This would imply that eventually, Billy “gets” the
landlady, but considering “understanding” her would entail knowing that she was ABOUT TO KILL HIM, it’s safe to say
Billy never “grows to understand her”. At best, he does view her positively at the end of the story (“ He turned away
from the dog and stared with deep admiration at the little woman beside him on the sofa.”), and he does have a
theory as to why she is so weird (“He guessed that she had probably lost a son in the war, or something like that, and
had never got over it.”), but he DEFINITELY never understands her.
 B “He initially finds her scary but in the end grows to like her”. Half right, but he’s never afraid of her. He even says,
“After all, she was not only harmless—there was no question about that—but she was also quite obviously a kind and
generous soul.”
 D “He views her as a threat continually throughout the text”. Read the quote above—he thinks she’s harmless!
#6 Citing evidence

 If the answer is that Billy thinks she is abnormal throughout the story, you need a quote
that indicates that he believes that.
 The best answer is A “’The old girl was slightly dotty…”. Here he actually says he think she’s
a nutter-butter.
 The other answers all have the same problem: none of them are reactions from Billy, they
are just commentary about what the landlady is doing or saying. If the question in Part A
was about what Billy thinks, the quotation for Part B must have some evidence of what he
thinks.
#7 Analysis of structure and its effects

 You know author’s don’t just write random stuff they think sounds good. They purposefully
structure a text so that it will create mystery, tension, or surprise. Dahl does this in “The
Landlady” with foreshadowing, which is hints or clues as to what is to come in a story.
 You needed a cited quote, which is always the author’s last name and the page number
in parenthesis after a quote.
 You need to ACE all your paragraphs! Answer the question in the first sentence, provide a
cited quote to act as evidence of your answer, then explain how your quote proves your
answer is correct.
 Here’s a good example response (see the next slide).
 If you got this one wrong, write what was wrong with your paragraph out to the side and
write how you would fix it.
 #7 Continued
Answers the question using
language from the
question
Dahl uses foreshadowing in “The Landlady” to create suspense by having all the hints he
gives the reader about Billy’s fate point toward something dangerous or deadly. For example,
as Billy tries his best to recall how he knows the names of the two other boys who have stayed
Cited quote
with the landlady, the narrator states, “He was positive now that he had seen them in the
newspapers—in the headlines” (Dahl 7). People are typically only in the headlines for two
reasons: something very good, or something very bad. By this point in the story, Billy has
already asked the landlady if the two boys were famous, to which the landlady replies they
were not. This piece of foreshadowing should create suspense for the reader because it is
now becoming clear to us that something bad happened to these two boys, and we know
the landlady has something to do with it. We spend the rest of the story in suspense,
wondering if something equally bad will happen to Billy at the hands of the landlady.
Explanation that restates the answer but
provides an explanation as to why it, and the
quote, are correct
#8 Word meaning

 For this question, you had to first find some similes, and then decide how they were being
used to develop the storyline (plot) and/or develop a character.
 This is some higher-level thinking type stuff, and the point is to make you more aware of
the idea that author’s don’t just use similes because they sound nice, but instead because
they help create some sort of effect.
 Here’s an example of good response (next slide).
 If you got this one wrong, write what was wrong with your paragraph out to the side and
write how you would fix it.
 #8 Continued

Dahl uses similes in “The Landlady” to develop the plot and the two characters. An example of how
a simile develops the plot would be when the landlady states, “’His skin was just like a baby’s’” (Dahl 8).
This helps move the story along because it is yet another hint at the idea that there is something wrong
with the landlady. There is no way she would know how Gregory Temple’s skin felt unless she had
touched it, so we know that she has a different relationship with the boarders she takes in than what
we would assume. Later down the page, when she explains that Mr. Temple is still in the house and that
she stuffs all her pets, the reader finally realizes why she knows Mr. Temple’s skin well enough to
compare it to a baby’s: she’s stuffed him!
An example of how a simile develops a character would be when the narrator describes the
landlady. The author states, “She looked exactly like the mother of one’s best school-friend welcoming
one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays” (Dahl 3). This simile characterizes the landlady as
motherly and sweet. This is important because it is one of the ways Dahl tricks us into believing that she is
not a threat. Because of this, we are less likely to guess that she’s a serial killer at the end because she
is portrayed as being so innocent in the beginning. Without characterizing her this way, the ending
would not have been surprising and, probably, not very entertaining.
 Tips for writing

 Remember to ACE:
 Answer the question by rearranging the language from the question and inserting your opinion.
 Introduce the quote with a phrase like “The author states” and a comma. You may consider putting a whole
sentence before this to give your reader context for the quote, like “An example is when the landlady pours the tea.
She states,”
 Explain how the quote you’ve used is related to the answer you gave. If this sentence doesn’t have the word
“because” in it, you’re probably on the wrong track.
 Citation basics:
 You always need an introduction to the quote that is a complete sentence, like “The author states”
 Your introductory phrase must always be followed by a comma
 If you’re quoting dialogue, the sentences the character stated will get single quotation marks while your entire
quote will get double quotation marks
 You ALWAYS need a citation. It is always the author’s last name and the page number in parenthesis, unless there is
no author, then you use the title. NEVER USE PARAGRAPH NUMBERS. And line numbers are only for poems!
 Your citation will always have a period after it, but your quote will be punctuated differently depending on what
type of sentence the original was.
 Common
examples
of how to
punctuate
quotes
depending
on what
kind of
sentence
you chose
from the text
Moar examples
Try it on your own

 You already answered the discussion questions in the packet, but now that you know
how to write good responses, let’s try the first one again.
 Rewrite your response to Discussion question #1: “In this text, Roald Dahl never outright
states the landlady’s dark secret or reveals the fate of Billy and the other boys – what is the
effect of this? How does this contribute to the suspense of the story?” Do this on the back
of your packet.
 Be sure to ACE your paragraph (or paragraphs. Since the prompt asks you two questions,
you may consider writing two separate paragraphs if the answers to both questions are
too dissimilar).