Comparing Lamb To The Slaughter And A Jury Of Her Peers

The short stories “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “A Jury of Her Peers” fall parallel to each other when it comes to the theme of murder and symbolism in animals, but the differences come into play when looking deeper into the women of each story.

Both short stories revolve around one interesting theme: murder. The main character, Mrs. Maloney, in “Lamb to the Slaughter” ends up killing her husband in the middle of the story. While Mrs. Hale, main character in “A Jury of Her Peers,” did not kill her husband, the story is all about her neighbor, Mr. Wright, who was murdered by his wife. These stories share the plot line of a mistreated wife who, eventually having had enough, killed their husbands. But, this similarity goes even deeper. Not only did both women commit such a crime, they both tried to cover it up as well. Mrs. Maloney played it a normal as she could by showing no knowledge as to what happened to her husband to the police. She even went as far as offering the officers a delicious meal of lamb leg, the murder weapon! Mrs.Wright also tried covering up her murder by hiding a dead canary, which was killed by her husband the same way she killed him.

Another key similarity between the two stories is their symbolism in an animal.

“Lamb to the Slaughter” holds symbolism in, none other than, a lamb. First off, a leg of lamb was the physical murder weapon. But, a lamb generally symbolizes innocence and harmlessness, which one can say represents Mrs. Maloney as well. It is ironic, however, because she ends up murdering her husband, and is not innocent. The symbolic animal in “A Jury of Her Peers” is a canary. When the bird is found, it is dead and has a rope tied around its neck. The canary symbolizes Mr. Wright because he killed that bird, and then his wife killed him the exact same way. Not only is symbolism a comparable aspect of both stories, but even what they symbolize is

similar.

Although these stories follow similar plots involving murder, the fate of the murderers are much different. In “A Jury of Her Peers” Minnie Foster is taken to jail once the police found out that her husband was killed. Although she had not been proven guilty yet, they still took her away as a suspect. What happened with Mary Maloney was different. In “Lamb to the Slaughter” Mrs. Maloney contacted the police after she had killed her husband and told them her cover story, stating she had ran to the market to get things for dinner, and when she returned, he was dead. With that being said, the police did not even suspect her as a possible murderer, unlike Minnie Foster.

Another thing both women do not have in common is how they reacted after having murdered their husband. Mrs. Maloney first reacted in utter panic. She knew what her penalty would be, but was unaware what would happen to her child. So, she decided on trying to cover up her murder in any way possible. In a hurry, she came up with a cover story, gave herself an alibi, and threw the weapon in the mix by making it dinner. Then, she called the police herself. Minnie Foster, on the other hand, reacted the complete opposite. She was found by Mrs. Hale’s husband, who wanted to talk to Minnie’s husband. She was sitting in her rocking chair, sewing like normal, and told him he was dead and upstairs. Minnie did not inform the police at all on her own, and acted as though everything was fine.