How Does Dahl Use Situational Irony In The Lamb To The Slaughter

Afterwards, as Mary headed to prepare a dinner Patrick had clearly stated he did not want, she processed the information. She was slightly shaken, as anyone would be, and payed no attention to the object she took from the freezer. The object that ended up in the malicious minded woman’s hands was a leg of lamb, the perfect murder weapon able to shatter one’s skull. The lamb was meant to satisfy her husband yet it did quite the opposite.

In Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Mary Maloney killed her husband after he told her some bad news and that he was leaving her. Roald Dahl left out a major part of the story, what did Mr. Maloney tell Mary that led her to kill her husband that she so dearly loved? Dahl used this method so that instead of reading the story then not giving it another thought, he wanted the reader/audience to express curiosity and keep on the subject of the story. Throughout the beginning paragraphs, it becomes clear that Mr. Maloney did not leave Mary because they lost a spark in their relationship. Mr. Maloney fell in love with another woman.

Mary Maloney is a loving and caring 1950’s housewife who loves her husband through everything, but something changed with her on that fateful day. On that day Mary changes her loving ways into a conniving and irrational person. In the story “Lamb to the Slaughter” Mary Maloney is going about her day and comes home from the grocery store and “claiming” she had no idea what had happened to her poor husband. Even if someone acts normal like nothing has happened they might just be guilty under that facade. In the case of Mary Maloney, after she retrieves bad news from her husband she goes and retrieves a frozen leg of lamb, and sneaks up behind her husband and hits him on the head killing him where he stood. Mary Maloney is a conniving criminal who was fully aware and responsible for her actions after the murder.

Is it possible for a loving wife who is six months pregnant, to love her husband with all her heart, but then moments later is found to be the wife that murders her husband? Lamb to the slaughter written by Roald Dahl features Mary Maloney, a caring, loving women, who is the wife of detective Patrick, an alcoholic man that comes home from work only to see his wife that he no longer loves. One day, when Patrick is not sober, he attempts to deliver some upsetting news to Mary about a divorce. Sadly, she does not believe it and carries on with her life, but after having to believe it, Mary takes revenge on Patrick by taking his life from him. Mary Maloney is extremely intelligent and is a very deceiving female protagonist. Throughout this story, her character traits do not just portray how she is an effective murderer, but a strong actress as well.

In the beginning of “Lamb to the Slaughter” we meet Mary Maloney a devoted housewife to her husband, whom her whole world revolves around. However, as Dahl’s story progresses, we interpret that Patrick Maloney is unhappy in his marriage and he confesses that he is leaving Mary. The confession causes Mary’s whole universe to collapse around her because her sole purpose as a housewife is now obsolete as she does not have a husband to cook dinner for. The shock of the news causes Mary to do everything without thinking that “everything was automatic now” (Dahl 40) therefore, she approached Patrick without thinking of the consequences of her actions, as she didn’t even hesitate to kill her own husband. In this moment, we detect a significant change in Mary’s character, we observed an act of violence from Mary that wasn’t expected of her to commit. She conceives of her own alibi to conceal the murder by going to the grocer and coming back to find her husband deceased, this shows her skills of careful deception to make sure no one suspected her of the crime. The submissive and kind housewife is the facade that Mary puts up to deceive the detectives in order persuade the detectives to get rid of the murder weapon for her without them realizing it. In the course of the story, Mary goes from being solely dependent

In the Lamb to the Slaughter, Patrick comes home and tells Mary that he is leaving her. She wants to forget everything he said but she can’t. She was furious that he’s trying to leave her and the child he impregnated her with. So instead of him leaving her, she murders him. She goes to the grocery store and comes back home. She then pretends to find Patrick dead and acts as if all she did was go to the grocery store and buy him food. She calls the police and “...she fell right into the chair, then went over to join the other one...by the body. Is he dead? She cried”(lamb, 7). This is dramatic irony because we know that Mary killed Patrick but the police don't. Furthermore, the quote shows that looks are deceiving because since she is a woman and she is crying, she looks innocent. Most women who are seen as sensitive are labeled weak. How could a weak woman murder a strong man? Don’t underestimate anyone by the way they look. Women are capable of more than you think. Dahl creates the idea that looks are deceiving by having Mary Moloney pretend that she is sad and grieving while she is the one who murdered her husband. In addition, through “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Billy goes to the Bell and Dragon. Before he arrives he visualizes the place as creepy and weird. When he gets there he sees the lady and his mind changes. “She seemed terribly nice. She looked exactly like the mother of one’s best school friend welcoming one into the

Mary starts off the story very happy. She has the picture perfect life, as “She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or moved slowly across the room with long strides. She loved intent, far look in his eyes when they rested in her, the funny shape of the mouth, and especially the way he remained silent about his tiredness, sitting still with himself until the whiskey had taken some of it away” (Dahl 1). Mary loves her husband so much, she thinks that everything is perfect, she has the perfect husband and the perfect baby on the way. Everything is perfect until Patrick says, “‘I’ve got something to tell you’”(Dahl 2). Patrick tells Mary that he is leaving her, he will give her money and make sure she and the baby were taken care of, but he is leaving. Mary is not happy, “Her first instinct was not to believe any of it, to reject it all. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn’t even spoken, that she herself had imagined the whole thing” (Dahl 2). Mary is devastated, her life is falling apart and she is trying to keep it all together. This is where we see a big change in Mary. She goes to get meat for supper, when she returns Patrick says, “‘For God’s sake,’ he said, hearing her, but not turning round. ‘Don’t make supper for me. I’m going out.’ 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 has been pushed over the edge here, she was so frustrated and betrayed that she reacted rashly. Her character just completely shifted. She was so happy with the perfect life, now she doesn’t have a husband and she’s a murderer. She has to think about what is going to happen next “As the wife of a

The first literary element that Roald Dahl uses in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is dramatic irony. The policemen in the story state, “‘Personally, I think it’s right here on the premises.’ ‘Probably right under our very noses’” (Dahl 383). In this quote the policemen are eating the lamb that Mary Maloney asked them to eat. This is after a long day of the policemen searching for the weapon used to kill Mary Maloney’s husband. This creates dramatic irony because the reader knows that the murder weapon is the lamb but the policemen do not. The policemen are eating exactly what they are looking for and have

When one thinks of the title 'Lamb to the Slaughter', it becomes very deceptive. Whilst readers may think a lamb is going to be slaughtered, they discover later on that a leg of lamb is used to kill someone. In addition, the lamb is a symbol of innocence and religious sacrifice in Christianity, but Dahl juxtaposes the symbol with its use as a murder weapon. The word 'slaughter' forebodes the events that will occur later on in the story. Dahl poses us the question on whether to interpret this title superficially or with depth. He forces us to create internal struggle and tension, as well as sparking our

The exposition was that Mary Maloney was always home by herself all day. She used to wait from the minute her husband left the house until the time when he arrived home to see him again. Mary’s spouse was named Patrick Maloney and was a policeman. He was a serious, ignorant man. One evening, he arrived home, but he was acting strange. The conflict was that Patrick

Mary, still demolished, crashed the lamb leg into Patrick’s head. Broken hearted, Mary called up her friend, Molly, explaining to her that Patrick had a long and tiring day at work so the will not being going out. After the phone call she stuck the lamb leg into the oven and went to the grocery story to get vegetables. Once she returned she wrecked the place to look as if it has been robbed and she dialed the police. When they arrived she, balling her eyes, exclaimed to them how she found her husband dead when she got home from the grocery store.

Mary impatiently looks at the clock constantly till her husband finally arrives. She notices Patrick acting strangley distant and insist he had trouble at work and even though she hates him complaining she still asked him what was wrong. Blatantly ignoring her Patrick finally confesses he is leaving her for another woman. In shock Mary has no idea what to say or even how to act she goes as if nothing really happened. She goes into the kitchen to make supper, grabbing the frozen leg of lamb she wraps it with napkins walks back to the living room and smashes it on the back of her husbands head. I was dumbfounded when i had read in the passage “ it was extraordinary how clear her mind became all of a sudden”. I loved how the author mixed up irony with a little bit of humor with it and facsinated how the character reacted afterwards this is how the author grabs the readers attention. After Mary Maloney kills her husband it gets even worse after pacing the

This shows that the wife is easy going and that she doesn’t rebel against her husband when he abuses her, whereas the situation of the wife in ‘Lamb to the slaughter’ is different. She is referred to by her name Mary Maloney and is six months pregnant. This is important because it shows what stage of her marriage life she is in and if it affects the outcome of the story. She is reliable and dependant on her husband to make her happy as it quotes ‘she loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man’. This shows that Mary enjoys just sitting down if it is her husband who is beside her. Also when you first begin to read ‘Lamb to the slaughter’ you get the sense of feeling that Mary Maloney is calm and caring ‘there was a slow smiling air about her’. The writer does this so that the reader begins to think that Mary’s character is gentle and warm. The murder then becomes more horrific as the reader does not expect a sudden change of character.

In the piece “Lamb to the Slaughter” Roald Dahl naturally creates tension through the inner and outer conflicts of his characters. In the work Roald Dahl has the wife character, Mary Maloney, say to her husband, Patrick, “But you must eat! I’ll fix it anyway,” (3) She says this to Patrick even after he repeatedly tells her to sit down because he is not hungry. This is the first time Mary directly disobeys her husband. This conflict creates tension because it finally breaks her Patrick's thinning patience in the story so far, which leads him to break and tell her news that upsets her. Roald Dahl also creates tension by having Mary kill her husband, which is a conflict with a permanent consequence. On page 5 she thinks, “So I’ve killed him,” this is after Patrick admits something, the details unknown to the reader, that greatly upsets Mary, and the reader’s watch as her honest shock turns into a brief moment of violence. When Mary hits Patrick over the head with a lamb leg it creates tension because it is the first time

One striking way the character Mary Maloney shows clear-headedness after the crime is by going through the trouble of creating an alibi for herself. She does this cleverly, pretending that she knows nothing about Patrick’s death when she goes to the market to get dinner for her husband, saying he is “tired and doesn’t want to eat out tonight.” (Dahl, ph. 382). She continues to lie to the store clerk, asking him what he thinks Patrick would like to eat and if he thinks