YEAR 10
PRE-LITERATURE ENGLISH
-TASK THREE: HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT-
By Natalie Hind
Women in literature are frequently represented as the damsel in distress. This statement can be confirmed through the analysis of the short story, The Landlady By Roald Dahl. Through an interpretation of the text, the reader is able to identify the characteristics that support the Landlady’s role of the distressed damsel. This can also be conveyed through the use of narrative conventions, especially characterisation, style, point of view and setting.
The use of characterisation heavily influences how we relate to the character of the Landlady. When beginning to read The Landlady, audiences will at first assume that she is frail and incompetent, and this is due to her age and appearance. The way she speaks also suggests that senility has a strong influence over the old lady’s behaviour. Billy Weaver comments on this by stating, ‘The old girl is slightly dotty…’. Of course, the obvious conclusion to the short story is that the Landlady is some kind of psychotic killer obsessed with killing and stuffing her victims. A second reading, however, may pose the question of why this is so. Readers will assume that her behaviour and actions were brought on by years of loneliness and that the Landlady resorted to killing because she thought that it was the only way her ‘companions’ would stay with her. These characteristics, however, are what confine the Landlady to the role of damsel in distress. As a result of this, the old woman’s deeds don’t seem as evil or terrible as before and in fact the reader could almost sympathise with her unusual obsession.