Lamb To The Slaughter By Roald Dahl

What happens when a pregnant woman kills her own husband? The short story titled “Lamb to the Slaughter” follows the story of the pregnant woman, Mary Maloney, and her husband Patrick. The story begins when Patrick decides to end his marriage. Out of anger and shock, Mary kills Patrick by hitting him on the back of the head with a leg of lamb. Instead of confessing to the murder, Mary Maloney lies about what she did and tricks the officers into eating the leg of lamb, effectively destroying any remaining evidence of the murder. The theme of “Lamb to the Slaughter” is deception. Both the original written work by Roald Dahl and the film adaptation use irony throughout the story to display this theme. Although both formats are presenting the same story and the same overarching theme, there are subtle differences between the film and the written version. The written piece by Dahl is presented in chronological order, while the film version uses Mary’s flashbacks to tell the story. In addition to this difference, Mary is depicted as a more selfless person in the film, and her motives for killing Patrick are less clear to a reader in the written version.

“Lamb to the Slaughter”, by Roald Dahl, tells about Mary and Patrick Maloney. The story takes place in the Maloney household during the 1950s. As Patrick returns home from his job as a police officer, Mary is ready to prepare dinner for herself and Patrick. Beforehand, Patrick explains he needs to talk to her imperatively. He confesses that he is in love with another woman and is divorcing Mary for her.

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.

In “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Dahl conveys various situations when Mary, the main character, gets so caught up in her own fear, she ends up hurting others. When Dahl demonstrates these moments, he creates the mood as a mentor to

“Lamb to the Slaughter” is told with details that Dahl chose and put around into patterns to cause the reader to go above and beyond to find the meanings in the story. A point is made to is made to Mary’s large, dark eyes in the story, sensing her calm personality; they are pointed towards again when she has Patrick’s friends to eat the leg of lamb, revealing this time how sneaky Mary is. Police don’t suspect Mary of anything because she has made up a solid alibi. Dahl’s usage of irony is quite funny. The police officers eat the leg of lamb and discuss trying to find the weapon used to kill Patrick. The officers’ believed that as soon as they finish eating they will be able to find the weapon. The story makes sense a world that is orderly,

First, Dahl begins creating betrayal in the story. The theme is shown for the first time in the “Lamb to the Slaughter.” Patrick is telling the Mary that she will be surprised and not be excited if she hears what's on her husband’s mind. She will feel sad and angry. “This is going to shock you (Dahl 319).” This is breaking a trust because Patrick is telling his pregnant wife Mary that he’s leaving her and doing something that Mary doesn’t know about.

Once hearing this news Mary Maloney was in complete astonishment, so amazed she could hardly speak. Dahl states, “her first instinct was not to believe any of it. 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” (Dahl 381). The circumstance in which Mary was faced with created upon her an oblivious mind. The reason for why Mary tried to avoid reality is not because she is unintelligent, but because of her obliviousness to divorces. “Lamb to the Slaughter” was a short story written and based off the time period of the 1950s. In the 1950s men never left their wives for other woman. Mary Maloney is not guilty, but oblivious to the idea of a divorce which developed her mind to reach the point of

The short mystery by Roald Dahl “Lamb to the Slaughter” details how Mary Maloney murdered her husband, Patrick, as well as remain unpunished for her crimes. The day seemed similar to every other as Mary waited patiently for her husband to return home from work. When he finally walked in through the door, Mary dotingly tended to Patrick, the way she always did. She removed his coat and made him a drink, content with the fact that he was home with her. Unfortunately for Mary, after Patrick downed his first drink, he coldly told her the terrible news: he was going to leave her -not only that, divorce her-

This short story “Lamb to the slaughter” by Roald Dahl is about a women named Mary Maloney who kills her husband Patrick Maloney with a frozen lamb leg. In the beginning of the story Patrick tells his wife that he wants to divorce her. She was being polite to her husband and offering him food but he kept turning his back towards her, ignoring her, and giving her short answers. “But i've thought about it a good deal and i've decided the only thing to do is to tell you right away. I hope you won't blame me too much” (pg 12). She went over to the kitchen to grab the frozen lamb from the freezer and hit her husband with it. However, she goes to the grocery store which is part of her plan and calls the police when she got home.”Quick! Come quick!

Mary outsmarts the detectives and is absolved of the crime. The absurdity is highlighted by the title of this work, "Lamb to the Slaughter." Ironically, one must question whether Patrick is also the metaphorical lamb which

In a “Lamb to the Slaughtered” Roald Dahl made a character Mary Maloney that commits a murder of her husband with a leg of lamb “She swung the big big frozen lamb leg in the air and brought

Character Analysis Essay for Mary Maloney Lamb to the Slaughter is a short story written by Roald Dahl. The story revolves around the protagonist named Mary Maloney. She is pregnant and she awaits every day for the arrival of her husband. Until one day, he decides to leave her. As a result, she kills him with a frozen leg of a lamb.

Although Mary Malone is the protagonist in the short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, by Roald Dahl, Mary Malone is a very distinct individual as she becomes a dynamic protagonist. Mary Malone is a regular routined housewife waiting for her beloved husband to come home from work, subsequently her husband decides to leave her pregnant wife. Which then sparks Mary into killing her husband and fooling all the people around her into thinking she is innocent.In the beginning of the short story the author successfully makes the reader think that Mary is a normal typical protagonist waiting to serve her tired and hungry husband. This is visible when the author narrates “Mary Malone was waiting for her husband to come home from work” (Dahl 10). This

In the beginning of the story ‘The Lamb to the Slaughter', Mary Maloney, is a sweet and caring pregnant lady who is devoted to her husband, but once she finds out that he has cheated on her, she becomes very jealous and angry, which only leads to her committing a very mischievous

How to Get Away with Murder; A review of irony in gender roles in the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl Dahl, Roald. Lamb to the Slaughter. London: Penguin, 1995. Web. "Lamb to the Slaughter" is a short story written by Roald Dahl, about a conventional family, a hard working police chief husband, and his subservient housewife, who murders him, and her subsequent goal of hiding the murder weapon.