Lamb Of The Slaughter Mary Maloney Traits

Mary Maloney is a character from the story “Lamb of the Slaughter” written by author Roald Dahl. Mary Maloney as a character in the story has a lot of versatile characteristics. Her most versatile characteristics are that she’s very patient, clever and brave. First, Mary Maloney is a very patient individual. Even after she’s been waiting for her husband to come back home for a long period of time, but she is still able to be calm and keep “[looking] at the clock [without showing any type of] anxiety [or frustration].” The fact that she kept her self-calm and relaxed in the point of situation where she needed him the most, shows that she has a lot of patience. Secondly, Mary Maloney’s a clever woman. She knew in order to keep herself safe from

being suspect, she needs to come up with a tactic. After she whacks her husband’s on the head with a frozen leg of lamb, she beings to run upstairs and “[fix] her makeup.” Then she tries to practice some dialogues to do a conversation with the grocery store worker. She tries to say “Hello, Sam” over and over again so it looks more ordinary than an unusual spoke.

After she has a set tone she goes to the neighborhood's grocery store and makes it a proof of her not being there in time of the murder. When she goes back home from buying the groceries and realizes that her husband’s body is still there on the floor. To protect herself from getting arrested in her husband’s murder she tries to artifice the police by calling them and reporting that “Patrick’s dead.” This makes the police believe that Mary is not a suspect and instead of an ordinary wife who's emotionally hurt from her husband’s murder. When they ask her questions during the question trails “They [treat] her kindly [of they don't hurt her emotions].” These tactics show that how clever’s Mary to artifice the detectives into believing that she’s not a murderer. Lastly, Mart is a very brave individual. When she first came to face the grocery store worker she was not afraid or in panic after murdering her husband, instead, she spoke in a confident voice saying “Perfect [and] Thank you [to the grocery store worker].” Also, Mary was a brave woman in front of the police by not confessing the truth in such a hard time of emotional

breakdown. These scenes showed that how brave was Mary to not to tell the police the truth in a time of a great loss. Clearly, the author gave a great understanding of Mary’s versatile characteristics in the story.