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Mary Maloney's behaviour

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December 2010 Lamb to the Slaughter – Roald Dahl WALT – identify and discuss techniques used by Roald Dahl in the short story ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. Techniques we are going to study for the exam essay paper are: Characterisation Setting Turning Point Building tension Key Incidents Characterisation:Mary Maloney Before Turning Point Caring – “I’ll get it!” “Darling, shall I get your slippers?” Slightly obsessed – “She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man” “each minute gone by made it nearer to the time when he would come” Pregnant – “for this was her sixth month with child” Lonely – “after the long hours alone in the house” Nice – “On the sideboard behind her two tall glasses, soda …show more content…

It wasn’t till then that she began to get frightened. 4) Patrick tells Mary his news: “This is going to be a bit of a shock to you I’m afraid” Patrick coming home interrupts the perfect domestic picture. The tension builds up until Patrick breaks the bad news, and Mary reacts by killing him – striking on the back of the head with a frozen leg of lamb. Tension then build up again as the reader begins to wonder what Mary will do, and if she will get away with it. Key Incidents Patrick comes home. The bad news. The murder (turning point). Mary establishing her alibi. The police arrive and Mary manipulates them. The police eat the lamb from the oven. Mary laughs as she gets away with murder. Essay questions from past papers Below is a list of essay questions from past papers. These are questions that you could answer using the text ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. Have a look at the questions that might come up in the exam. For ALL questions Answers to the questions in this section should refer to the text and to such relevant features as : characterisation, setting, language, key incident/s, climax/turning point, plot, structure, narrative techniques, theme, ideas, description… 2006

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