Vocabulary
The word (British) for crazy, eccentric, or foolish.
What is dotty?
What Roald Dahl was inspired by to write many of his short stories/novels.
What are events from his childhood (trip to the chocolate factory)?
The name of the city the short story takes place in.
What is Bath?
Write one sentence explaining how someone's clothes might tell you something about them as people.
What you call a moment in the story where a character makes a choice they cannot return from (like Billy checking into the BnB).
What is a point of no return?
The definition of the word porter.
What is a person who carries bags/goods?
What Dahl did in World War II.
What is serve as a fighter pilot and spy?
The thing Billy's clothes tell us about him.
What is that he's naive/new to his job?
Write two sentences explaining the moment in the story that you realized something was off about the landlady and why you thought it was odd.
What is a reason and why?
What we call the creation of horror/tension through a slow increasing of strangeness/horror instead of showing it to the reader immediately.
What is slow burn?
The definition of the word facade.
What is a false, deceptive outward appearance that hides someone's true feelings or nature?
The kind of ending that Dahl initially planned for "The Landlady" to have.
The quality that Billy thinks makes all successful business men.
What is briskness?
What did Roald Dahl mean when he said authors should "strive to be as childish as possible while coming up with ideas?"
What is keeping your ideas simple so that readers can follow along with the story?
What we call the kind of rhyme where the first sound in a group of words repeats/rhymes.
What is alliteration?
The word which means "pleasant, friendly, or well-suited to one's tastes" (spelled correctly).
What is congenial?
The magazine "The Landlady" was published in for which it would win an Edgar Award.
What is The New Yorker?
The detail about the landlady's hands, revealed towards the end, that is meant to make the reader uneasy.
What is her hands being pale and her nails being red?
What was the simile, "each word like a large black eye staring at him through the glass" trying to make the reader feel? How did it do that?
What is trying to make the reader feel watched by likening each word to an eye/revealing that the landlady was watching Billy?
What we call the kind of irony produced through structure when the reader learns something before the characters.
What is dramatic irony?
What is rapacious?
The movie franchise Dahl surprisingly wrote a movie for.
Who is James Bond (You Only Live Twice)?
The first and last names of the other guests
Who are Christopher Mulholland and Gregory Temple?
List the three terms that you will explain how they create horror in Dahl's writing in your essay.
What are {Dramatic Irony, Slow Burn, Simile, Indirect Characterization, specific story details and why they create horror}?
The term for Roald Dahl's easy to follow writing style.
What is a simple writing style?