Changeling And Mary Maloney's Journey

The concept of journeys transforming is greatly evident throughout both the texts. In the film ‘Changeling’, directed by Clint Eastwood and the short story ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ written by Roald Dahl, depicts the transformation of the female voice and authority. This is evident through the development of the female characters Christine Collins and Mary Maloney, the composers of both the texts had used these two characters to portray the journey of the female voice and the two authorities, Traditional and Charismatic.These are the central themes of both the texts and there transformations represents the journey each text takes place.

The female voice was a journey throughout the film that transforms extensively, in a patriarchal society,

Mary Maloney is portrayed as a typical 1950s housewife, she has the expected duties to stay home whilst her husband is at work. The opening scene represents the emptiness of the house, she sits across from an empty chair waiting for her husband and once he arrives she does everything he commands. This emphasises the lack of a voice women had and depicts the traditional roles of women. The key scene that represents the female voice is when her husband comes home and Mary Maloney prepares drinks, a strong one for him and a weak one for herself. This symbolises the difference between the men and women and how women shouldn't drink as strong as men, this also highlights the power her husband held. However the female voice had transformed extensively as Mary Maloney ends up killing her husband. Dahl uses the technique of dramatic irony in the scene where the police officers eat the leg of lamb, whilst eating one of the police officers declared that the murder weapon ‘it’s probably right under our noses’. This scene not only portrays dramatic irony as they eating the murder weapon but also depicts a metaphor as the murder weapon ‘the leg of the lamb’ was right below their noses. The transformation of the journey of the female voice is evident through how Mary Maloney changes because of the fear of loosing her

At the beginning Mary Maloney is devoted to her husband, as her husband has power and traditional authority however she manages to kill him because of the fear that he would leave her. The atmosphere gradually changes as the story continues to develop, the atmosphere starts off as the room being clean and warm however throughout the end Dahl uses symbolic words like ‘cold’ to juxtapose the change of the atmosphere before and after Patrick Maloney’s is killed by his wife therefore loosing his traditional authority. The next key scene is when the police officer Jack Noonan was speaking to Mary Maloney and says ‘Get the weapon and you've got the man’. This depicts the gender stereotype that the murderer must be a man and this is ironic as the murderer is a woman. Mary Maloney transforms from a typical 1950s housewife to a murderer, she thus has charismatic authority as she obtained power through her personalty and