How Does Roald Dahl Use Dramatic Irony In Lamb To The Slaughter

In the short story “Lamb To The Slaughter”, written by Roald Dahl, the two main characters, Mary and Patrick Maloney, show many emotions and the emotions are portrayed in certain ways depending on how Dahl uses word choice and figurative language. Throughout the story the emotions of the characters change and alter depending on how specific events happen and show how the character will react in the situation, whether it be good or bad. Mary and Patrick Maloney have very different emotions towards each other and it’s very surprising to see how the emotions change during the course of the story.

The author uses the characters in the story as a big climax, to show evil throughout the text. The two stories are very different and are very much the same all at once and they both play big parts with the main points using the characters. Lamb to the slaughter is written by Roald Dahl and The possibility of evil is written by shirley jackson. The characters in the stories play dramatic parts in the story, to make the story interesting.

Its seems to me that "The Necklace" is a better example of situational irony because, in "The Necklace" the author gives the main lead character an actual punishment where the characters has to spend the rest of her life paying for her greedy mistake. In "Lamb To The Slaughter" the main character did not receive any type of punishment, at the end of the day she got away with the murder of her husband. In "The Necklace" when she was invited to the party with her husband she said "Oh nothing. Only i don't have an evening dress therefore I can't go to the affair." Even before the the actual party started Mathilde was already complaining about how she did not have the necessary clothe to wear for the party.

There’s plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer, and you can have it right here and not even have to move out of the chair’’’ (2). Mary only ever want to please Patrick. She made sure everything was perfect for him and to never do anything wrong. She could not think of anything she had done to deserve such news. She immediately rejected the news and decided to pretend as if it never happened. Patrick was behaving so cruel to her while she was being nothing but nice to him. She even continued to make him dinner and he yelled at her saying not to because he is going out. This angered Mary resulting her to hit him with the leg of lamb and kill him. This shows that Mary is a sympathetic character because she was always compliant to Patrick. He had no right to disrespect her as he did.

Dahl’s protagonist in “Lamb to Slaughter”, Mary Maloney, displays her deceitful nature when her husband comes home from a long day of work. Mary kills Patrick with a frozen leg of lamb after he informs her that he wants a divorce. Immediately thereafter, she goes to the store to purchase vegetables. This is the beginning of her deceit. Mary clearly does not need vegetables. Her trek to the store is her way of creating an an alibi. This adds another layer to her deception. Here, she engages in a conversation with a seemingly familiar clerk, Sam. She informs him that Patrick “decided he’s tired and doesn’t want to eat out tonight” (Dahl 3). This gives Sam the impression that her husband is still alive when in all actuality, he is dead. She has added yet another layer to her level of deception. Mary’s deception has no limits. She eventually deceives herself into thinking she did not murder her husband. She convinces herself that she is “not expecting to find

The author of the story “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Roald Dahl, uses a significant amount of irony throughout the story. Dahl uses irony to make his story more appealing to the reader by keeping them engaged. An example of irony in the story is when Mary is six months pregnant and her husband expresses he is leaving her, so she murders him. The audience would have never seen this coming because the author expresses Mary’s feelings from the beginning of the story by saying, “She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in the door or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved the intent, far look in his eyes when they rested on her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whiskey had taken some of it away.” (Dahl 1-2). When Dahl shares Mary’s feelings, the reader concludes that Mary is an innocent, loving wife that truly loves her husband and would do absolutely anything for him. But when Mary murders him after he decides to leave, situational irony appears. This is an example of situational irony because the reader would never expect Mary to murder her husband, but the exact opposite occurs. Dahl also uses situational irony as an example of language. The language makes the story more intriguing and exciting. The situational irony is used in the story to shock the reader and to create the climax of the plot.

Author also surprises readers, when he introduces conflict between a couple that used to love each other deeply. Diverting the story from love to betrayal, author develops an irony. In the story, reader sees two examples of betrayal. Ms. Maloney, while talking with her tired husband, finds out her husband no longer want to keep their marriage. Without giving any kind of reason, Patrick betrays her wife with a decision of breaking marriage. Mary shocks, when her husband, boldly, says, “ This is going to be bit shock of you”(P. Maloney) Author creates a total opposite picture of Patrick by describing him as a husband who used to give her wife surprises; he is now giving her shock in the middle of her pregnancy. Mary, who was previously shown as “anxiety less”(Dahl), with “a slow smiling air”(Dahl) and “curiously tranquil”(Dahl), had began to get upset and now inculcate her eye with a “bewildered look.” After betrayed by her husband, she, without any argue, she goes to the basement to look for frozen food. She decides to have leg of a lamb as a last dinner with her husband, but she smashes the frozen leg in to Patrick’s head with killing him. Mary betrays her husband by killing him and takes revenge of her betrayal. Later, Author confirms her as a murdered with the statement of “I’ve killed him”(Mary) from her own lips. Dahl, in the story,

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.

This is where the reader knows more then the characters, having seen the murder from Mary’s point of view and now watching the police officers discuss the crime. Also ironic, is that the police officers are doing Mary a huge favour by eating the evidence, making her practically undiscoverable. What is also special about the story, is that in the very beginning, Mary Maloney is described as a weak woman, only devoted to her husband and submissively in love with him. The reader is completely shocked when she murders her husband.

The next several paragraphs prove just how much Mary loved her husband and explain why "She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man". However, the more reasons Mary gives for loving her husband and the more attempts she makes to please him it becomes clearer and clearer that something is wrong - Patrick is avoiding conversation and is becoming increasingly more irritated with Mary for her attempts to please to him. When Mr. Malloney cannot bear another moment of the fuss that has been created around him by his wife, he loses his nerve and tells at Mary to "just for a minute, sit down". Patrick tells his wife, which by the evidence in the text I assume is, that he is leaving her.

At the beginning of the story, the readers are presented with a strangely content housewife. Mary Maloney’s “curiously peaceful” demeanor and the fact that she was merely satisfying herself with the thinking “each minute that went by made it nearer the time he would come home” suggests that Patrick is the focus of Mary’s life, the fountainhead of joy and purpose. Consequently, Mary developed and maintained a cellophane, fabricated persona, with the center of everything being her

Throughout the story Dahl also use Verbal Irony to make Mary seem as an innocent being and not knowing anything that happened. After the death of her husband, she sets a plot to show that she didn't know her husband was dead. In the story, Mary tells the clerk, “Patrick had decided he is tired and doesn't want to eat out” (Dahl 320). This is a lie because Patrick never wanted food. Mary is saying this to make it look like she is cooking for the both of them and like nothing happened that night. Later that night when Mary gets home, she walks in asking her husband how he is doing (Dahl 321). Thus, this is verbal irony being used by Mary because she knows that her husband is dead on the floor. She say this trying to

“The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of he shock. She came out slowly, feeling cold and surprised, and she stood for a while blinking at the body, still holding the ridiculous piece of meat tight with both hands.”. (13)In the quote the narrator explains how Mary picked up the weapon and how she hit him in the back of the head which ended up brutal. Its dramatic irony in the sense that the reader knows that lamb chop was the weapon. The use of dramatic irony allows the readers to really feel like a ghost in this story because you know everything but can say anything to the characters.

For several years I failed to grasp the important aspects of literary and rhetorical devices. . However, since the beginning of my junior year my understanding of literary and rhetorical devices has improved substantially. Especially on the correspondence of identifying literary and rhetorical devices when reading. Also being able to incorporate these devices into my writing. Such as in my comparative analysis. I wrote about the irony in “Lamb to the slaughter” by Roald Dahl and “Desiree’s baby by kate chopin”.

Mary is very manipulative in that she is able to create the character of the poor, pregnant wife, whose husband has just been murdered. She is able to convince the police to take pity on her, to mix her a drink and then to even eat the evidence, the leg of lamb that she has left in the oven. "Why don’t you eat up that lamb that is in the oven" (Dahl, p. 17). Mary realizes that if the police find the evidence she will go to jail. Her quick thinking and manipulative character results in the police officers eathign the evidence and therefore she cannot be charged of this crime. These actions show the complex character that Mary Maloney truly is.