Lamb To The Slaughter

The short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, is about a pregnant wife whose husband comes home, and shares shocking news with Mary Maloney, his wife. Mary grabs a leg of lamb from the freezer and comes back and kills her husband, Patrick. The police come to investigate, but they eat the lamb that was used to kill Patrick. Dahl uses dramatic irony and symbolism to reveal common sense goes out the window when it comes to illegal matter.

In Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” , Mary Maloney murders her husband, a detective, after he declares that he is leaving her. Mary then has to cover her tracks or else she and her unborn child will be killed. Throughout the story, Mary’s character changes from loving wife to cold killer and back again based on her situation.

The short stories written by Saki called The Open Window and The Lamb of the Slaughter written by Roald Dahl are two great and amazing stories. While some differences between Mary Maloney from Lamb to the Slaughter and Vera Sappleton from The Open Window, the similarities are salient.

Emotive language and dialogue was a literary technique that Roald Dahl used in order to explore the idea of stereotypical gender roles which was a common societal issue particularly in the 1950s. Lamb to the Slaughter tells of a couple during the 1950s who followed the stereotypical couple concept of having a housewife and a husband working a middle-class job. Through the Maloney’s relationship it can be seen how Mary Maloney fulfilled and had a desire of wanting to provide and care for her husband using her skills of a housewife. This can be perceived in the quote; “I’ll get you cheese and crackers.” This informs readers that her nature and manner of wanting to please and satisfy the needs of her husband is very important to her. In response to Mary her husband replied with “I don’t want it”. The issue of gender roles/gender hierarchy in this particular situation encouraged Mary’s contentment of wanting to murder her husband which may have been initiated because of the imbalance within their relationship. Patrick Maloney’s reply to his wife portrays a disrespectful and inconsiderate attitude which represents the dominance and power that he has within the relationship. His authority within their relationship may have been generated because of his role as a provider for his wife. Another quote by Mr. Maloney states “sit down, just for a minute sit down,” this represents the type of relationship and interaction that the couple reflects. Their relationship shows no negotiation and inequality within the relationship; Patrick who is an educated detective, whereas Mary was just a

You wouldn’t expect the lamb to kill the man. “ Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl is a about a women named Mary Maloney that killed her husband. Mary’s husband tells her that he is leaving her. Not knowing what to do to try to keep her husband, she gets a leg of lamb and hits her husband in the back of the head and kills him. She quickly covers her tracks and fools the police, offering them the leg of the lamb for dinner to get rid of the evidence. Therefore Roald Dahl’s use of irony throughout the story, builds up a understanding of Mary Maloney.

Traumatic news can lead to traumatic actions. In Roald Dahl’s ”Lamb to the Slaughter,” main character Mary Maloney is told very shocking new that causes her to overreact and kill her husband Patrick Maloney. Their blissful life turned upside down in a matter of five minutes. Mary was a great wife to Patrick. She loved him very much and is even carrying his child. Mary always catered to Patrick and was very loyal to him. Mary Maloney is a sympathetic character because she was very loving, compliant, and only lied to protect her baby.

Roald Dahl, a British novelist, offered his readers a classical short story, “ Lamb to the Slaughter,” with the tale of betrayal, justice, injustice and passivity. Two main characters of the story are detective Mr. Patrick and Ms. Patrick who live in small town. Roald Dahl tries to reflect human nature of perversity, and cruelty through the “ Lamb to the Slaughter”. As the story progresses, theme of love, passion, betrayal and injustice grow stronger. Author smartly shows us how an idle wife becomes a smart criminal to take the revenge of her betrayal and successes to trick officers.

Additionally, Dahl used situational and dramatic irony as literary devices in “Lamb to the Slaughter”. An example of dramatic irony used in the story is when Mrs. Maloney requests that the police eat the murder weapon, the frozen lamb leg. The author says, “It’d be a favor to me if you’d eat it up” (Dahl). This expresses dramatic irony because the police think she is asking them to eat the lamb to be polite, but in reality Mrs. Maloney just wanted to get rid of the murder weapon. An example of situational irony used is when Mary Maloney kills her husband with a frozen lamb leg because she was displayed as a loving wife who was obsessed with her husband and his happiness, but then she shocks the reader by killing him. The author states, “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head” (Dahl).

“Lamb to the Slaughter” is told with details that Dahl chose and put around into patterns to cause the reader to go above and beyond to find the meanings in the story. A point is made to is made to Mary’s large, dark eyes in the story, sensing her calm personality; they are pointed towards again when she has Patrick’s friends to eat the leg of lamb, revealing this time how sneaky Mary is. Police don’t suspect Mary of anything because she has made up a solid alibi. Dahl’s usage of irony is quite funny. The police officers eat the leg of lamb and discuss trying to find the weapon used to kill Patrick. The officers’ believed that as soon as they finish eating they will be able to find the weapon. The story makes sense a world that is orderly,

Authors use characterization to develop the actions of the characters. Like Mary’s actions in ‘The Lamb to the Slaughter’ by using different kinds of literature devices. Roald Dahl in "The Lamb to the Slaughter" uses characterization, imagery, and irony to develop the character of Mary so that the reader can understand what has occurred during the murder.

With Mary using the lamb as the murder weapon and cooking it for a part of her dinner, she had ‘no choice’ by to feed the already prepared dinner to the guests she had over after she had murdered her husband, or rather ‘found her husband dead’, feeding them the cooked weapon as they discussed the case. Mary had listened in from in another room, giggling to herself due to the stupidity of the detectives working on the case. This makes the readers infer that Mary will or may get caught, but due to the detectives eating the weapon used in the murder, it is not a high chance that she will get narrowed down to being the suspect. But with the work of witnesses, though, there is a slight chance that she may be put in prison due to her

“Lamb to Slaughter” vs “Storyteller” In the “Lamb to Slaughter”, Dahl portrays the theme that sometimes the people you love can end up hurting you both emotionally and physically. Mr. Maloney decides he wants to leave his wife and she does not take this information well because this emotionally hurts her feelings. She had so much love towards him and the negative information he shares with her causes her to act out and hurt him. Dahl says, “ She swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. She might have as well hit him with a steel bar (Roald Dahl 2)”.

In the story Lamb to the Slaughter the character Mary Maloney, a good housewife is expecting her husband to return home from his job as a local policeman. When Mr Maloney returns home from work he was very down in the dumps, very moody and angry. He then told Mary that he was leaving her with no explanation of why he was leaving her. After hearing that Mr Maloney was leaving Mrs Maloney, she strikes him from behind with a frozen leg of lamb and with doing that instantly she has killed him.

In my opinion the story LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER does a better job than THE NECKLACE because in the sense where mrs maloney say that Mr. Marloney cant go any where because she is making him dinner but he is done with her so mr. marloney says stop me and Mrs.Marloney gets the lamb that she was cooking for him and hits him on the back of the head with it and then calls the grocer so she can get some things and then goes home makes a sense like a person murdered mr. marloney and calls the police and when they arrived they asked her questions that she acted like she didnt know about at all then the police and detectives went in the kitchen and discover that the oven was still on with the leg of lamb still cooking and she tells them to turn

Societal norms show the worlds various good and bad ideologies. In the story, Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl a woman named Mary kills her husband with a leg of lamb. Then, she calls the cops and tells them that her husband is dead. After that, she feeds the murder weapon to the cops on the scene. The portrayal of women as the bad cop, the preconceived notion of a female's role in society, and implied dependence on men are all themes in Lamb to the Slaughter. In using the wife as the murderer, Roald Dahl shows the human desire to exact revenge.