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Use Of Irony In Lamb To The Slaughter

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Suspenseful Irony: “Lamb to the Slaughter” “The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table over turning, helped bring her out of her shock”. This short story is action packed, and very well written with good details.While it has good information, it is packed with irony. In the short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Roald Dahl uses irony to show suspense. As the story begins, Mr. Maloney arrives home from work. Mrs. Maloney can sense something is wrong as soon as he walks through the door. Mrs. Maloney sat up with her sewing kit, getting ready to prepare food. “‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Just for a minute, sit down’” (3). Mr. Maloney arrived home and wanted to tell his wife something. But with how Mr. Maloney was acting, Mrs. Maloney was trying …show more content…

As the story continues, Roald Dahl uses situational irony to show suspense. Mrs. Maloney was still going to cook Mr. Maloney dinner, acting like everything was fine, but Mr. Maloney said he would not be staying for dinner. “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” (4). Mrs Maloney acted erratically and swung the frozen leg of the lamb, killing her husband. This was after Mr. Maloney told her that he was leaving her. So without any hesitation she decided on killing Mr. Maloney out of frustration, growing the suspense of the story and using situational irony. After the murder of Mr. Maloney, Mrs. Maloney goes to the local grocery store to pick up items for dinner. While Mrs. Maloney was checking out she started a conversation with Sam the butcher, while communicating with Sam she acted perfectly fine, like nothing happened. When she entered the house, she happened to find anything unusual, or tragic or terrible, then naturally it would be a shock and she’d become frantic with grief and horror”

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