Mary Maloney Lamb To The Slaughter

Literary elements and writer’s craft are essential to a well written story that gives understanding and meaning to the readers. Authors use these elements to add deeper meaning to a story that otherwise is as dull and same as the rest. The short story Lamb to the Slaughter is about a wife who kills her husband and then tries to cover it up. The Leap, another short story, is about a girl who is telling stories about her mother’s life. Both short stories portray and utilize literary elements and writer’s craft but Lamb to the Slaughter uses them more effectively and clearly.

In “Lamb to the Slaughter” Roald Dahl uses dramatic irony to make the reader feel surprised because Mary Maloney does certain things, like killing her husband and acting as though it is a shock when she finds out, that only the reader and Mary Maloney know. First near the middle of the story, after finding out he wants to leave her, Mary Maloney kills her husband Patrick with the leg of lamb that they are supposed to eat for dinner at their house. According to the text, “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 153). This quote is an example of dramatic irony because only the reader

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

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.

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.

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.

Everyone does something at some point in their life that can be considered insane. Sometimes it’s simple things like trying a new food or a new hobby. However, other times it can be more extreme such as stepping outside of the status quo or jumping out of an airplane. The story, “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl takes the term “insane” a bit farther. The story depicts the life of Mary Maloney and describes the event in which she hit and killed her husband with a leg of lamb after receiving unfortunate news from husband when he returned home from work. However, Mary Maloney is innocent due to reason of Insanity due to her inability of being aware of her actions throughout the story. She does this by portraying the symptoms of a person with schizophrenia, attempting to maintain to the forced conformity of gender roles, and her over attachment or jealousy for her husband.

To start off, it can be clearly seen from the short story that Mary Maloney is guilty. She makes a conscious effort to make sure she reacts as if she has not committed this crime in the text “Lamb to Slaughter” she says, “If she finds anything unusual or terrible when she got home, then it would be a shock and she would have to react with grief and horror.”(Dahl 383) By her stating this it shows that she knows she is guilty and that she killed her husband. The main reason I chose this quote was that it shows that she knows what she is talking about and that she has to act like this otherwise she will be caught and

The common theme of "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" is that presumptions give people power to betray others, as revealed through the characters' actions. Both "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Tell-Tale Heart" are about supposedly inferior people who rise up and murder their oppressors, tricking many people along the way. Throughout "Lamb to the Slaughter", it is clear that Mary Maloney is only able to get away with murder because the detectives assume a woman would never commit such an atrocity. While they search for the murder weapon, one of them told Mary that "the murderer might not have taken it with him, but he might have thrown it away" (Dahl 4). By only using the pronoun "he" while referencing the killer, the detectives

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.

Life gives all people the ability to think, to speak, to breath, and to be a part of this world. Life is a gift that is worth more than any amount of money which makes it priceless. In the story, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” by Roald Dahl, the character, Mary Maloney, not only took this away from a citizen but from her very own husband, who indeed was going to leave her. This typical 1950’s housewife and soon-to-be mother was faced with a crime scene in which she had caused. She understood the consequences that could result in this situation. Therefore, she purposefully created a scene that in no question a housewife could have generated. Thus, Mary Maloney is a conniving criminal responsible for her lawless action due to her awareness of her intent, unjust acts.

Additionally, Dahl incorporates situational irony into the text to prove the theme that is is not wise to underestimate the capability of someone who seems week. Dahl writes, “Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the long frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head” (Dahl 382). In this quote, Mary struck her husband in the back of the head with the frozen lamb and as a result he was quickly killed from the force of the blow. Just a page before this quote, Mary was describing just how much she loved her husband and how much she enjoyed just being in his company. Not too long after that Mary murdered her husband for wanting a divorce, which shows situational irony because the situation took a turn that never would have been suspected. Mary seemed to be so in love with her husband, and her murdering him seemed impossible for being such a loving wife. This contributes to the theme by showing how even the people who seem the weakest are still capable of dangerous things, like when the officers underestimated Mary of being capable of her husband’s murder after seeing how deep in love she seemed to be.