Figurative Language In Lamb To The Slaughter

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.

In the short story “Lamb To The Slaughter”, written by Roald Dahl, the two main characters, Mary and Patrick Maloney, show many emotions and the emotions are portrayed in certain ways depending on how Dahl uses word choice and figurative language. Throughout the story the emotions of the characters change and alter depending on how specific events happen and show how the character will react in the situation, whether it be good or bad. Mary and Patrick Maloney have very different emotions towards each other and it’s very surprising to see how the emotions change during the course of the story.

Lamb to the Slaughter, written by Roald Dahl is a short story which explores certain issues within society which were initiated during the 1950s and are still present today. The themes of stereotypical gender roles, betrayal and destroyed innocence are all common within the story as well as society. These issues were enhanced through the techniques of dialogue, foreshadowing and symbolism/metaphors. Lamb to the Slaughter is a short story which explores common societal issues that were present during the 1950s and are still found in today’s culture.

Throughout the story Dahl also use Verbal Irony to make Mary seem as an innocent being and not knowing anything that happened. After the death of her husband, she sets a plot to show that she didn't know her husband was dead. In the story, Mary tells the clerk, “Patrick had decided he is tired and doesn't want to eat out” (Dahl 320). This is a lie because Patrick never wanted food. Mary is saying this to make it look like she is cooking for the both of them and like nothing happened that night. Later that night when Mary gets home, she walks in asking her husband how he is doing (Dahl 321). Thus, this is verbal irony being used by Mary because she knows that her husband is dead on the floor. She say this trying to

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, has many examples of imagery, irony, details, and language which keeps the

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,

In Roald Dahl's 1951 short story, "Lamb to the Slaughter," Mary Maloney comes to embody a feminist heroine by escaping her husband's oppression. Her behaviour in the

“That’s the way she told herself. Do everything normally. Keep things absolutely natural and there’ll be no need for acting at all.” (Dahl) The story Angus Bethune by Chris Crutcher and the story Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl share many similarities and differences. One element where the two stories share similarities and differences is in the protagonist of each story, Angus and Mary.

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

Mary Maloney was a sweet, innocent, young woman who catered to her husband’s needs and waited patiently for him to come home every evening. However even women as sweet and innocent as Mary are capable of violence if they are pushed.The main theme in Ronald Dahl's Lamb to the slaughter is that all people are capable of being violent if they are pushed to. The reader can see this by examining the characterization of Mary and the ironic actions Mary has shown.

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.

She thought that perhaps she'd imagined the whole thing. Perhaps, if she acted as though she had not heard him, she would find out that none of it had ever happened.” Then, Mary strangely has the urge to make supper. This emphasises that Mary was no longer aware of her actions. In a desperate act of retaliation, she killed Patrick by hitting him on the head with the leg of lamb.

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.