The Slaughter Of The Lamb Case Analysis

First and foremost, Mary Maloney had over reacted to her husband's news. This was not the typical overreaction with whining and crying. Mary maloney had killed her husband. In the story Mary maloney receives bad news from her husband. Mary then goes downstairs to grab a leg of lamb for dinner but instead of making it, she smashed it on

In “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Mary Maloney is not guilty for killing her husband, Patrick, but was instead temporarily insane. As her defense attorney, I declare that Mary Maloney should not be held liable for breaking the law, because she was mentally incompetent at the time of her actions. A crime of passion can describe Mary Maloney’s actions, because it was not premeditated or deliberate; it was because of a strong impulse of disbelief and anger. The first example from the passage that justifies this is, “Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work. Now and again she glanced at the clock, but without anxiety: She merely wanted to satisfy herself that each minute that went by made it nearer the time when he would

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.

Mrs. Maloney gets away with the murder in the end. This caused by a revolting ending in which he police detectives eat the leg of lamb that was used to kill Patrick. The writer creates an unbelievable ending by making the story, up to the murder, set in a very normal family house. It is not somewhere you would associate with a morbid killing. The writer builds up an impression that the marriage may not be as good as it could be, and both were under strain not to release the tension onto each other.

Mary loves her husband Patrick with all her heart. When he gets home every day she takes care of him and gives him anything that he wants to keep him happy. She greets him and kisses him. She accounted that this was her favorite time of day. “She loved the warmth that came out of him when they were alone together.” She would never even think of harming him in her right state of mind.

Mary Maloney is a sympathetic character because she covered up Patrick’s death to protect her baby. All of the tricking and deceiving she did was to save her unborn child from what could have happened as a result of her actions. She did not know what the laws were for murdered with unborn babies and she did not want to find out. Dahl states, “ What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill both-mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? Mary Maloney didn’t know. And she certainly wasn’t prepared to take a chance” (3). Mary’s number one concern was for her baby. She did not want

At the beginning of the story, Mary Maloney loves and adores her husband, this does not last very long. Dahl uses simple but strong sentences to portray the killing of Patrick Maloney “At the 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.” This illustrates Mrs. Maloney walking without any hesitation, killing her beloved husband and this also exemplifies the ultimate transformation of Mrs. Maloney from her calm behavior to being over dramatic. Another detail that this phrase demonstrates is that Patrick is so focused in his thoughts that he doesn’t sense his wife walking up towards him. Dahl reveals this unexpected transformation of Mary Maloney through her actions and thoughts. Another phrase that exemplifies Mrs. Maloney’s change in character is when she thinks to herself, after killing Patrick, “‘All right,’ she told herself. ‘So I’ve killed him.’” This illustrates Mrs. Maloney’s impeccable life, or what she conceives to be her life is demolished. At this point of the story, Dahl uses direct and indirect sentences to develop the protagonist and to show the complete transformation of Mrs. Maloney and brings her to

Mary was a horrible role model for her two children.She had two sons whose names were Tony and Wes Moore.She partied instead of parenting her children, along with “hiding ” Marijuana in her family's home.On page twenty Mary blatantly lied to her own child’s face.She looked At Wes and said, “Mommy got some bad news about school, and I want to go see some friends

Mary Maloney has just bludgeoned her husband to death with a leg of lamb. A rather unusual and brutal crime to say the least. Is she criminally responsible? The most common defense in murder trials is the insanity defense, which states that the defendant is not criminally responsible due to insanity. Could Mary be insane? Well, the answer is probably not. According to www.brandongaille.com , 88% of insanity defendants are found to be clinically “sane” by the state. I think Mary Maloney is a criminal, who is aware of, and responsible for her actions due to the fact that Mary attempts to manipulate the order of events, Mary attempts to give the officers alcohol, and Mary has the murder weapon disposed of. All of this evidence portrays malicious intent and that she understands the gravity of the situation.

Dahl quickly turns the seemingly docile Mary Maloney into an assertive, capable woman by describing her emotionless, logical thought process. Initially, she “was content to sit quietly, enjoying his company in the long hours alone in the house. She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man...” (Dahl 49). In this excerpt, Dahl paints Mary as a doting wife and leads the reader to the conclusion that she focuses all her attention on her husband and his happiness. This setup leads the ending of the story to be all the more unpredictable and startling. However, this particular day he seems different to her; she eventually realizes that he has unfortunate news for her, most

Throughout the entire story, Mary is a very interesting character. She faces many issues in dealing with her husband’s news that he is leaving her. She reacts based on her instincts and kills her husband and this shows her cold heartedness. In the end she has to create an alibi to cover up her devious crime in which she has to manipulate the police into eating the evidence. Mary is a very unique complex character and she has, through her actions conducted a devious crime in which she will be proven innocent. Through the use of Many Maloney’s character, as well as irony and suspense, the author was able to maintained the interest of the reader throughout the entire short story.

At the beginning of the story, the readers are presented with a strangely content housewife. Mary Maloney’s “curiously peaceful” demeanor and the fact that she was merely satisfying herself with the thinking “each minute that went by made it nearer the time he would come home” suggests that Patrick is the focus of Mary’s life, the fountainhead of joy and purpose. Consequently, Mary developed and maintained a cellophane, fabricated persona, with the center of everything being her

Is it possible for a loving wife that 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? Well, Mary Maloney, a caring, loving women 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 character in the short story called, Lamb To The Slaughter. Throughout this story, her character traits do not just portray how she is an effective murderer, but a strong actress as well.

To start off, it can be clearly seen from the short story that Mary Maloney is guilty. She makes a conscious effort to make sure she reacts as if she has not committed this crime in the text “Lamb to Slaughter” she says, “If she finds anything unusual or terrible when she got home, then it would be a shock and she would have to react with grief and horror.”(Dahl 383) By her stating this it shows that she knows she is guilty and that she killed her husband. The main reason I chose this quote was that it shows that she knows what she is talking about and that she has to act like this otherwise she will be caught and

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.