Summary Of Lamb To The Slaughter

Initially, “Lamb to the Slaughter” provides an eye opening look into Gothic literature. It revolves around a hot mess relationship, with Mary Maloney and her husband Patrick. Before Mary was told the bad news, she could feel the tense mood in the air but ignored it. Mary babbled on to her husband but he was distracted on what he was about to tell her. Patrick asked her to take a seat, and then began to tell Mary the bad news. After she was told, not a word or movement was mad from her, she sat there with a stone cold face and unable to digest the news. “So there it is” he added “And I know it’s kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn’t any other way. Of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after. But there need’nt really be any fuss I

Patrick came home from work one day and told his wife, Mary, shocking news. Mary goes down to get dinner, a leg of lamb, and comes back into the room and kills Patrick with the lamb leg. The narrator explains, “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, 2). Mary Maloney killed her husband with a frozen leg of lamb with a blow at the back of his head. This means that the lamb is symbolising the weak and defenseless. Mary Maloney took the weak and defenseless and killed her husband with it, revealing that the weak and defenseless are capable of doing illegal things too. This matters because it reveals that people have to be wary of even the most frail and vulnerable because they can do drastic things just like the strong and powerful. Mary was able to take the frail and defenseless and use it to kill someone, which is illegal. Mary’s common sense was gone, as was the lamb’s.

First and foremost, Mary Maloney had over reacted to her husband's news. This was not the typical overreaction with whining and crying. Mary maloney had killed her husband. In the story Mary maloney receives bad news from her husband. Mary then goes downstairs to grab a leg of lamb for dinner but instead of making it, she smashed it on

frozen lamb leg she called their friends to tell them that they could not make it. That her husband

Mary begins the story as a doting housewife going through her daily routine with her husband. She is content to sit in his company silently until he begins a conversation. Everything is going as usual until he goes “ slowly to get himself another drink” while telling Mary to “sit down” (Dahl 1). This shocks Mary as she is used to getting things for him. After downing his second drink, her husband coldly informs her that he is leaving her and the child. This brutal news prompts the first change in Mary, from loving wife to emotionless and detached from everything.

Mary taking the leg of lamb from the freezer downstairs and walking with it to the living room indicates the end of the rising action of the story, or the start of the climax. All of this builds up to the point of Mary killing her husband.

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.

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,

In the short story Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl the husband that comes home early one day with bad news. He told his pregnant wife something. It was really shocking to her, and in the story it said that she got really sad. He then says that he would give her money and see that she is looked after. When she heard the news she went downstairs to the basement and got a frozen lamb to cook him. When she came up, he heard her and could tell that she wanted to make him supper. So he told her that he was going out so she doesn’t have to make it, but he said it in quite a rude manner and she seemed bothered by this because right after he said that she hit him in the head with the frozen lamb and he died. After she seen what she has done,

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.

Roald Dahl’s short story Lamb to the Slaughter and Alfred Hitchcock’s rendition of the short story in the film Lamb to the Slaughter have similar framework , but contain many differences. Firstly, Both had Mary murder her husband with a frozen lamb. Furthermore, she was not actually discovered to be the murder for she had an alibi and the detectives ate the murder weapon. In contrast, Mary’s alibi in the story is that she went to the grocery store while in the movie it was that she had dinner plans. Additionally, Patrick’s problems with Mary conversation is up for interpretation. In the story the narrator takes the reader away from the action and simply states that he spoke to her. In Alfred Hitchcock’s film Patrick directly states that he

Here, death shows that life has changed for Mary due to the late death of her

Mary says ''you can't go... Patrick i won't let you''. Patrick knows he wasn't loyal to his wife thats why he wants to leave her. When Mary was going to go get the meat out of the freezer she see's Patrick trying to she takes the frozen lamb leg and whacked him in his head to kill him, and giggles after. Before Mary calls the cops and tell them that her

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.

The motif of the lamb leg within “Lamb to the Slaughter”, by Roald Dahl, contributes to the development of the story by embolizing Mrs. Maloney’s facade of innocence, which in turn strengthen the moral dilemma of either turning herself in as a criminal risking her child’s life or to continue living as a metaphoric lamb leg with the benefit of allowing her to raise her child without fear.