Mary Maloney's behaviour

In the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter”, author Roald Dahl conveys his feelings that the troubles in life can be solved by analyzing the situation before acting, that you should appreciate what you have, and that ultimately that everyone is a lamb, all with the power to break free of their control.

The police interrogated Mrs. Mary Maloney, Patrick Maloney’s six months pregnant wife. “Patrick had arrived from work, while I was sewing. He was so tired to go out for supper, so I went across the street to the grocery store to buy a few things for supper. I was there for no more than 10 minutes. When I came back home, I found my dear husband dead on the living room floor,” Maloney said when asked what happened the day Patrick Maloney died.

After the horrible news Patrick gave Mary, in shock, all of her anger and confusion led to her sudden

When he returns, Mary notices that he is uncharacteristically “distant.” After having more to drink thhan usual, Patrick reveals to Mary what is making him act so strange. He eventualy says that he’ll be leaving her and the child for another woman. Mary then goes and gets a lamb leg from the deep-freezer in the cellar to cook for their dinner. Then Mary quickly hits him in the head which results in his death.

According to the police department, Patrick came home soon after 5pm and was waiting for dinnertime,when his wife Mrs. Mary Maloney left for the grocery store across the street to get some vegetables for no more than twenty minutes and came back home to find her husband dead on the living room floor. “The neighbors didn't witness the attack on Mr. Maloney. stated detective “O'Malley.

In many of Roald Dahl’s storys, his characters have a tend to have an underlying trait to them that is not always prevalent throughout the story . For instance, in this story, Mary Maloney struggles with the trait of schizophrenia. A person with schizophrenia tends to exhibit some noticeable symptoms. According to The Internet Mental Health Initiative, some of the symptoms can be sometimes feeling nothing at all, feeling detached from your own body, and replaying or rehearsing conversations out loud. Throughout the story, Mary Maloney has a tendency to display all of these symptoms as she goes through the pre and post events that occurred after she received the unfortunate news. “Lamb to the Slaughter” elaborates on the symptom of body detachment by quoting , “The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of the shock”(Dahl 382) . At this point in the story, Mary Maloney has just hit her husband with a leg of lamb which then caused him to fall over dead. This quote shows that during the point in time when she hit him, she was having an bodily detachment due to the fact she was in shock from the news she had recently received. By the time she had became fully aware of what she was doing and was awoken from her bodily detachment, he had already hit the ground. Mary Maloney also portrays the mutual

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.

To further explore, Mary is viewed by the reader as a woman who acted only on impulse and betrayal, but as the story deepens the reader is soon made aware of her insanity through dramatic irony. Mary’s inner dialogue describes her expectations of what she is going to see and experience once she arrives, she tells herself she is simply going home to prepare food for her husband who is waiting for her, but in reality has been killed. By her own thought, she isn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. Mary’s internal dialogue changes the reader’s perception of her and the story as a whole. When the officers are at the house inspecting the scene, Mary talks to Noonan and O'Malley refers to the suspect as a man, an example of verbal irony.

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,

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.

You must be terribly hungry by now because it’s long past your suppertime, and I know Patrick would never forgive me. God bless his soul, if I allowed you to remain in his

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.

Mary has three distinct personalities throughout the story. In the beginning of the short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter” she seems like a devoted wife to her husband, Patrick. For instance, “The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight-hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. On the

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.

In the short story Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, has many examples of imagery, irony, details, and language which keeps the