In the short story “The Landlady” written by Robert Dahl, and Alfred hitchcock’s “Lamb to slaughter” television show. Both writers portray both main characters as antagonists in their stories. Mary from “Lamb to slaughter” ,and the landlady from “the Landlady” show key traits which makes them similar to each other but also key differences. These include they are both extremely dangerous and manipulative people. But they are also different in the fact that The landlady kills with a more planned and thought out, while Mary is more off feeling and “thinking on her feet”. Their first and most obvious similarity is that they are cold blooded killers. Both characters are fully understanding of what they are wanting to accomplish. This is shown when the landlady gives Billy tea that “ tasted faintly of bitter almonds”. We can infer from this that her method of killing is threw poisoning the tea she gives to Billy. However Billy was not the first one to be killed by the Landlady. She had previously killed to other boys of roughly the same age the same way. This shows her true cold blooded nature that she can not just kill one but three people …show more content…
Were Mary is very spur of the moment and not premeditated. The Landlady is premeditated and thought out. Mary is very messy as she does not hide the body and try and cover it up. Instead she calls the police and lies to them about what happened. Also she uses force to kill her husband which is a kind of murder usually used by people with a lot of anger towards that person. Were The Landlady poisendes her victims. This is a very clean thought out premeditated way of committing murder. This most commonly used by people who want to remove themselves from the process. It is also a very clean way to commit murder. She doesn’t even need to break a sweat to kill Billy. This is a very psychotic murder unlike Mary who’s is a very enraged
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
Mary had been interviewed to the point where she shut down and couldn’t answer anymore questions. She sat in silence when detectives would investigate her, unable to tell them what happened. Mary eventually fell guilty and started her journey to baby jail where she began a sentencing. The other juvenile delinquents and CO’s, or guards, of baby jail mistreated Mary because of the accusations people made. Mary’s back story consisted of murdering a baby and now that’s how people characterized and treated her, like a murderer.
She lifted it out, and looked at it---a leg of lamb “ (Page 2). The fact that Mary Maloney can’t even feel herself doing anything, corresponds to how shocked she is. As a matter of fact, that is when her consciousness of her action momentarily fades away. She cannot accept the fact that her beloved husband would betray her like this, but in a way, the introduction to the story already tells us that their relationship isn’t strong and loving. Also, Mary is shown to have picked the very first thing she found, which was a lamb leg. This proves that she had no intention of premeditating a weapon beforehand, but instead used whatever she could find to let out her emotions. In addition, pregnant women are more emotionally unstable and because of that Mary Maloney couldn’t handle the stress of the news her husband told her. The final quote that proves her temporary insanity is, “She stepped back, waiting, and the strange thing was that he remained standing there for at least four or five seconds. Then he crashed onto the carpet. The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped to bring her out of the shock… It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew what the punishment would be…In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the baby ” (Page 2)? Not only did she regain her consciousness, moments after her husband’s death, but she also
Mary has one motive for murdering her husband. The motive is that she couldn’t accept the fact that her husband was leaving her. He says, “ ‘This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I 'm afraid,’ he said. ‘But I 've thought about it a good deal and I 've decided the only thing to do is tell you right away. I hope you won 't blame me too much...So there it is,’ he added. ‘And I know it 's kind of a bad time to be telling you, bet there simply wasn 't any other way. Of course I 'll give you money and see you 're looked after. But there needn 't really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It wouldn 't be very good for my job.’ " Although he didn’t say the exact words the reader can infer this when he states “… i’ll give you money and see you 're looked after. But there needn 't really be any fuss. I hope not anyway. It wouldn 't be very good for my job…” Some readers might disagree with her for killing her husband because he was leaving her, but she was truly in love with him
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.
Landlady is a short story by Roald Dahl. The story is about the youthful man, Billy Weaver, who went to the a little city called Bath to carry out his job. Sadly, he gets into the wrong place and that gets him into trouble. The topic refers to a widespread thought or message that keeps running all through out a story. Now we locate various subjects in the story, The Landlady, by Roald Dahl.
While doing her everyday routine, and waiting for her husband little did she know this would be his last day coming home. At about ten minutes till five she heard Patrick’s car arrive. Marry started her day like any other sewing and greeting Patrick at the door. After she poured him a drink he finished it fast and got back up to get another. Patrick then told Mary he was leaving her for another woman, in this case she had a sudden reaction. With all the opportunities present, she did something she never thought she would do. She killed her husband with malice causing her to be guilty of second degree murder.
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.
Since the landlady kills more people than the narrator she is more insane than he is because he only kills the old man, and he has a cause for it. Whereas the landlady only kills to fulfill her fetish for stuffing people who look like a son that she might have lost in the war. We are hinted at this when Billy says “She had probably lost a son in the war, or something
In conclusion, the two stories, ‘Landlady’ by Roald Dahl and ‘Chemistry’ by Graham Swift has both similarities and differences. This two authors have used different perspective to narrate the story, as well as to use different style when creating the character’s personality. However, they’ve also shared similarity. Both the way author tells the alteration of relationship between the characters are quite
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
Character Analysis Paragraph Mary Maloney is a d deceitful, intelligent and unpredictable housewife in the story lamb to the slaughter. First of all, during the story, Mary Maloney tricks the police officers and detectives multiple times. She shows her deceitfulness when she pretends to cry about Patricks death to the officers, when calls she says "I think Patrick is dead" while sobbing when she didn’t care before and clearly still doesn't. Mary Maloney knows that if she acts how she really feels about Patricks' murder she would be suspicious so has to be deceitful . Second of all, she is extremely intelligent in her whole placement in the situation.
The first thing that Mary Maloney considers after she realizes her husband is dead is the life of her baby. She begins to wonder how her choice could ultimately affect her child’s life, in which maternal instincts begin to kick in and she immediately begins to think of a plan. Her first thought is to appear heartbroken and innocent, so she seeks an alibi. Mary attempts to appear “normal” and tries to walk in to the home only with the knowledge that he had just been killed. Of course, many of the detective and police believe her, in which she uses this to her advantage by ironically allowing the men to eat the murder weapon.
Mary in “Lamb to the Slaughter” and Minnie Foster, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters in “A Jury of Her Peers” have similarities and differences between the two short stories. Both Mary and Minnie Foster are childless housewives who were fearful of their husbands. The wives were both interrupted from their normal routine by an incident that triggered them to murdering their husbands. After finding out he was leaving her, Mary is shocked into killing her husband with a leg of lamb which they were having for dinner. Minnie puts a rope around her husband’s neck while he is sleeping because he broke her pet canary’s neck. The two stories depict the wives as sympathetic figures who were justified in the crimes; neither murder was premeditated.
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.