Symbolism In Lamb To The Slaughter

Later on in the story she asks if she can get him some cheese and crackers and he just gets really nasty with her and just snaps at mary and goes no i do not want anything for god's sake.

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

husband. Mary was a nice person but was afraid when she killed her husband on accident. If I

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.

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

She puts the meat in the over in order to erase the evidence and practices her expression and voice. Then she goes out to a nearby store and chats with Sam, the grocer, about what she needs to buy for her husband's dinner, to use that as a protection for her and show that she is not the murderer. On her way home, she purposefully acts everything to be normal and then is "shocked" to discover Patrick's body lying on the floor, however, her tears were real. She calls the police, and two policemen, who were friends and colleagues of Patrick. Mary maintains her act and claims that she went to the store and when she returned she saw her husband's body lying on the floor.

Dahl’s use of dramatic irony during the story helps displays the actions of Mary Maloney and other characters. Mary Maloney swings the leg of the lamb to the back of the head of her husband. Dahl says, “ 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 320). As a result, this quote is effective because the lamb was used as a weapon, instead of food; which shows that Mary could use anything to harm someone without her trying or when it was her attempt to hurt that someone. The story writes, “Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack”. In the same way as the first quote, this sets back to Mary because she sabotages the police to eat the lamb. With the police eating the lamb she is getting rid of the evidence so she does not get caught. From the use of dramatic irony in the story, Dahl's builds Mary as a character; he also uses different irony to create her.

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.

The short story Lamb to the Slaughter is interesting to read because of how gullible the detectives were. Mary cooked the lamb that she used to kill her husband with, then she tells the detectives to eat it and they do. They were talking amongst themselves saying that all she wanted to do was cook him dinner, so she couldn’t have killed him. There are possibly two reasons as to why the detectives were gullible. The first one is that Mary, Jack and the detectives were all good friends, “they always treated her kindly” (Roald 15). So

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.

Clearly Mary takes a quick trip to the grocery store before the police arrive, and asks the grocer kindly for some groceries, so when he is questioned all he could say is that she is cheerful and wants to just create an amazing dinner for her

(Dahl 4). Her persuasion, then convinces the detectives to eat the leg of lamb and therefore the murder weapon. This demonstrates Mary’s intelligence and deceitfulness as a killer through dramatic irony due to the detectives not knowing

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.

Mary killed her husband by her hitting him on his head with a frozen leg of lamb. Her being a detective’s wife, knew how to set up her alibi. First, she cooked the murder weapon. She went to the grocer to establish her alibi; she was shopping for the evening dinner and was not home when her husband was killed. Mary called the police and told them her husband is dead. After verifying her alibi, Mary insisted on the detectives eating the murder weapon.

Mary's husband tells her that he is leaving her. "´So there it is," he added. "And I know it's a bad time to be telling you this, but there simply wasn't any other way. Of course, I'll give you money and see that you're taken care of. But there really shouldn't be any problem. I hope not, in any case.´¨ The husband makes it sound like Mary must depend on him -- like she is worthless without him. In reality, Mary can take care of herself. As if to prove this point Dahl has Mary kill her husband. Which can be seen as the ultimate act of revenge. At this point, Mary has called the cops and they are arriving. ¨´The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door, two policemen walked in. She knew them both. She knew nearly all the men at the police station."Is he dead?" she cried. "I'm afraid he is. What happened?´" This is perhaps the darkest form of revenge simply out of the fact that the statements she makes are out of anger. It is plain deceit -- Mary is lying to men she has known for a long time. The dark and simple dialogue in this section of Lamb to the Slaughter shows an extreme form of revenge, in the case, murder.