Compare And Contrast Lamb To The Slaughter And Popular Mechanics

In both “A Lamb to the Slaughter"” by Roald Dahl and “ Popular mechanics” by Raymond Carver the authors shows the readers that the couples have relationship problems. Telling the readers if you do not deal with your diffrences in a healthy way someone will get hurt. The central idea with these two stories is relationship problems.
There are some similarities the authors have in both stories. One of the similarities is that the men are leaving their partners. For example, in “Popular Mechanics” it shows how the girl is yelling at the guy to pack up his stuff in his suitcase and to leave. In addition, "Lamb to the Slaughter" “Of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after. But there needn’t really be any fuss. I hope not anyway”. In both stories the husband is telling his wife he is leaving her, but the authors do not tell the readers what the reason is.

Another way both stories are similar is that the relationships end in a disaster.

This quote says, “All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed him.” Just because her husband decided to leave her she killed him, instead of asking why or trying to solve the problem she murdered him. Instead in “Popular Mechanics”, it says, “In this manner, the issue was decided.” This quote does not explain much but this couple was fighting over to keep the baby, and from this quote, the readers can conclude that because they hurt the baby they blamed each other. One more thing both stories have in common is that they are both crimes of passion. In “Popular Mechanics” the parents hurt the baby because they both love and want to keep the baby. Also, the wife in "Lamb to the Slaughter" kill her husband and tries to cover up her crime because she wants to protect her baby and her from getting separated. These are some ways the authors use the same ideas in their

story.
On the other hand there are some ways the stories are different. In “Popular Mechanics” the mom and dad hurt the baby by accident not wanting to harm the baby. However unlike Mary Maloney in “Lamb to the Slaughter” she killed her husband and covered up her crime. However in the story “Popular Mechanics” when the mom and dad hurt the baby they both got affected which ruined their relationship even more. But in “Lamb to the Slaughter” it says, “On the other hand, what about the child? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children?” Mary was not worried that she killed her husband, she was worried what would happen to her unborn child. These are one of the main spots how both of the stories are different.
In conclusion it is evident that both stories show how the central idea is relationship problems. Even though they have similarities and differences, they are very much alike. Both of these authors use the same idea but instead twist it and turn it around in their own way.