She seemed terribly nice. She looked exactly like the mother of one's best school-friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holiday.
Billy, the protagonist of "The Landlady" finds himself compelled to enter the bed and breakfast place that appeared in front of him all of a sudden. He was thinking prior that those types of places are not up to his taste. The lady that suddenly appears is an old and seemingly harmless woman. She immediately makes him feel welcome. This story is one example where the author uses the tool of deceit, where a seemingly harmless character is the one capable of horror.
Where was he now, this William of hers, the great disapprover?
William and Mary are an example of a married couple where the husband likes to disapprove any sort of free-will in the wife just for the sake of exhorting his power over her. Naturally, the wife is filled with poisonous contempt after all the years of disapproval, which is shown in her cynical view of his not being there anymore. It is this sort of view of marriage that the author shows in his stories which, in its own way, can be seen as an element of horror.
And one thing he must have known-that she would never dare to call out and tell him to hurry. He had disciplined her too well for that.
Another example of this sort of behavior in marriage where the husband likes to exhort his power over the wife just, so he can feel important, is the story "They Way up to Heaven". The author shows that wives need to be disciplined by their husbands and never show any kind of disagreement. This problematic view of male and female relationship and view of women in general are met with contradicting endings of his stories, where the portrayal of this sort of behavior is seen to have dire consequences.
