Comparing The Landlady And Lamb To The Slaughter

There are many comparisons in the two stories “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl and “A Jury of her Peers” by Susan Glaspell. First, both stories were even though the time periods are different the wives still had to take care of their husbands and the house. This is shown when Mary was going to make dinner and take her husband’s coat off. It was shown in “A Jury of her Peers” when Mrs. Hale felt bad for not doing all the household chores and leaving them half done. Another comparison is that in both stories they had bold women, in “Lamb to the Slaughter” the wife pretended that she didn't kill her husband and had the cops eat the murder weapon. In “A Jury of her Peers”, Mrs.Hale hid an important piece of evidence from the cops. In both there was a definite way the women and men were treated different. Another

Murder, one of the worst crimes a human could commit, is not taken lightly and most times the primary suspect is a male. In the 2 stories, “Lamb of the Slaughter”, and “The Landlady”, the reader learns just how murderous man’s counterpart can be. Roald Dahl, the author of these 2 stories, wrote “Lamb of the Slaughter” from the perspective of Mary Malony a loving housewife who gets terrible news, and wrote“The Landlady” from the perspective of Billy Weaver, a 17 year old businessman who stumbles across a Bed and Breakfast run by our next “Mistress of Death”. The reader will learn that even though these 2 stories are different in many ways, they still have plenty of similarities.

In human nature there exists a morbid desire to explore the darker realms of life. As sensitive beings we make every effort to deny our curiosity in the things that frighten us, and will calmly reassure our children that there aren't any creatures under their beds each night, but deep down we secretly thrive on that cool rush of fear. Despite our efforts to maintain a balance of respectable emotions, we are a society of people who slow down to look at traffic accidents and find excitement in the macabre. We turn off the lights when watching scary movies, and when it's time to go to bed, we secretly make sure the closet doors are shut. Fear keeps our hearts pumping and endorphins rushing, for it is an emotion that reminds us of our

Mrs. Maloney gets away with the murder in the end. This caused by a revolting ending in which he police detectives eat the leg of lamb that was used to kill Patrick. The writer creates an unbelievable ending by making the story, up to the murder, set in a very normal family house. It is not somewhere you would associate with a morbid killing. The writer builds up an impression that the marriage may not be as good as it could be, and both were under strain not to release the tension onto each other.

Have you ever wondered why you enjoy being scared? In Allegra Ringo’s interview, “Why do some brains enjoy fear?”, with Dr. Kerr, a scare specialist, he states that many enjoy being scared because the brain triggers “a flood” of adrenaline, dopamine, and endorphins. To enjoy the feeling of being terrified, our brains have to process that we are in a safe space. Scary movies, stories, roller coasters, and haunted houses all create a breathtaking response to fear. These experiences we have with fear are said to create self-confidence, relieve stress, and even bring us together. Americans spend over 7.5 billion dollars on Halloween activities and costumes. Dr. Kerr states in the interview, that people love Halloween so much because it constructs a strong emotional response and build stronger memories. Dr. Kerr also says that when we are happy, or afraid we release hormones that help those moments “stick” in our brain. We all love a good scare! “The Raven”, by Edgar Allen Poe, and “Beware: do not read this poem”, by Ishmael Reed both analyze the allure of fear through symbolism and descriptive imagery, which is a part of gothic literature. Both Poe and Reed signifies their themes differently but both themes allude to the fascination of fear.

People develop multiple reasons to why they like to receive these odd and fear emotions, which now in society we call insanity. In the “Why We Crave Horror Movies” by Stephen King, whose main argument is that we watch horror movies to satisfy our curiosity. In the “How Tabloid Train Wrecks Reinventing Gothic Literature” by Carina Chocano, whose main argument is to prove how gothic literature is very similar to gossip; for example, gossiping makes people turn into ghosts, unnatural. It’s tempting to see Gothic tales as escapism, but these stories will sum up during times of trouble. Fascination with fear or Gothic stories satisfies some emotional need of individuals and of society by making people feed on their inner childhood that is inconstantly needed of satisfaction. People can do that by watching horror movies or reading tabloids and that is why they enjoy scaring themselves.

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.

A key element in horror stories is foreshadowing. Foreshadowing will make readers want to read more and it will also create suspense. Foreshadowing is nearly same in horror stories. Foreshadowing in horror stories such as “THE LANDLADY”, “THE MONKEY’S PAW” and “THE TELL- TALE HEARTS” and "The Hitchhiker" are very important and creates suspense for the readers which makes the readers want to read more.

One way authors plant fear in your brain is by transforming something we already know and love into something frightening. One example of this is in the short story “Windigo” by Louise Erdrich. Over the course of the story, the windigo takes an innocent little kid and turns them into a monster. The author introduces an inculpable child, even calling them “little one”. She then takes the kid and transforms them into a monster, a windigo. Following that, she even goes so far as to bring the child home. Home. As a monster. To haunt her own village. It says, “...I carried you home,” and that is when the fear she planted at the beginning really starts to take root. This transformation is a great illustration of an author transforming something you know and love, in

going to leave her but Dahl does not make it clear what the bad news

What makes people seek for experiences that make them feel scared? Fear is the expectation or the anticipation of possible harm, so why do people like it? There is a hormone called dopamine, that is released during scary and thrilling activities, according to David Zald, some individuals may get more of a kick of this hormone than others. Lots of people enjoy scary experiences, because of the feeling that they have after these situations. As reported by ABC News, in “Spooky Business American Economy”, people spend about 7 million dollars in Halloween, looking for costumes, decoration objects, and also in haunted houses. People enjoy scary movies, roller coasters, and haunted houses. Similarly, people enjoy thrilling literature, as Edgar Allan Poe and Louise Erdrich poems, “The Raven” and “The windigo” respectively. Both of these authors write and explore death and the ambiguity of what will happen after death, by using concrete examples of imagery and symbols, structured paragraphs, and a certain type of diction.

The conflict in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is, that Mary. Maloney, a devoted housewife, six months pregnant, kills her husband with a leg of lamb after he tells her that he is planning on leaving her. In the very beginning, the atmosphere is very calm. Mary Maloney is peacefully sewing in her living room waiting for her husband, a police officer, to come home from work. After his arrival, they silently sit in the living room drinking whisky. Mrs. Maloney watches her husband very carefully but after he swallows his whisky very quickly and gets another stronger drink, the reader notices that something is unusual. Before she wants to fix something for supper, her husband stops her and tells her, even though it isn’t exactly conveyed to the reader, that he

This is a twisted, gripping tale of Mary Maloney, who murders her own husband by hitting him with a frozen leg of lamb and then hiding her crime and disposing of the evidence by feeding the lamb to the policemen who come to investigate the murder.

In horror stories there is just enough mystery to make you want to know more, and enough danger to make you glad this is fiction. Scary stories can allow people to conquer their own adversities. We all have our demons, things we’re afraid of but don’t want to admit. Some horror novels play on common fears like IT by: Stephen King which uses clowns as the source for fear, Chucky which features menacing dolls and Contagion which portrays rampant pestilence. By vicariously facing your fears in a novel, you’re able to tame them in real life. Sometimes even watching a character deal with the monster uplifts you to face your own fears. The concept of gruesome entertainment is all in human psychology. In order for us to be entertained, we have to feel the story being told. Scary stories bring us the adrenaline rush, the exploration of the unknown, and even the upliftment we all crave. Luckily the monsters in these stories are all fiction and cannot harm us in real life. Until they show up the next night, waiting for you in the

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.