Lamb To The Slaughter By Mary Maloney

Actions do not always speak louder than words in literature. In the case of Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter”, dialogue and actions both play a major role in conveying emotional changes, rather than just the latter half. In the story, Mary Maloney undergoes major emotional changes in response to her husband’s request for a divorce. Dahl uses both Mary’s words words and actions to create a gradual shift from a satisfied, loving housewife to a calculating, remorseless murderer.
In the story, Dahl is able to show a change in Mary’s emotions through her actions. At the beginning of the story, Mary is patiently awaiting her husband’s return from work. While waiting, she desires “to satisfy herself…” knowing that he will be home soon, and when he opened the door, she “stood up and went forward to kiss him as he entered” (Dahl 1). The change is noticeable after she murders her spouse. On page two, Mary cleans herself up and practices her alibi, trying to sound normal while pretending she has no idea Patrick, the aforementioned husband, is dead. Molly’s actions show her going

from a wife eager to greet her husband with a kiss to killing him with no hesitation or remorse whatsoever.
Another way Dahl shows a change in Mary’s emotions is through what she says.

When Patrick gets home from work, exhausted, she tries to tend to his every need. After Patrick told her how exhausted he was, she offers to cancel dinner plans to appeal to him by saying, “‘If you’re too tired to eat out tonight, as we had planned, I can fix you something. There’s plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer’” (Dahl 1). This caring tone is completely absent when the police arrive to investigate. In order to get rid of the murder weapon, a leg of lamb, Mary offers it to the policemen as token of thanks, persuading them by stating, “‘Personally, I couldn’t eat a thing, but it’d be a favor to me if you ate it up. Then you can go on with your work’” (Dahl 4). She goes from tending to Patrick’s every need to pretending to be too distressed to eat as to trick the officers into getting rid of the

evidence.
To sum it all up, Dahl proved actions are no louder than words, at least in some cases. Throughout the story, Mary goes from sweet as can be to a cold hearted killer. These changes were gradual at first, but cultivated into a whole other personality. Through Mary’s change in both actions and dialogue, we can clearly tell that she undergoes an emotional shift.