Lamb To The Slaughter By Roald Dahl

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In Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter", the author carefully uses language to portray the changing emotions of Mary Maloney. Mary Maloney was horrified as she heard the terrible news from her beloved husband, which led to a shocking crime. Mary goes through the emotions of being a loving wife, being in shock and then manipulated emotions, that each create a situation with in the plot where Mary, Patrick and the officers are the lamb to the slaughter. In the beginning of the story, Mary shows her emotions of being a loving wife and how she feels towards Patrick. This is shown when the narrator says, "She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or moved slowly across the room with long strides,"(Dahl, 1). This loving emotion towards her husband makes Mary a lamb to the slaughter because Patrick fooled her; she loved him so much, that she did not realize he cheated on her. Mary's love connects to Mary being a lamb because of what Patrick did. …show more content…

The author indicated this when the narrator says, "The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of her shock." (Dahl, 4). This shows that when Mary kills Patrick she is not aware of what she is doing until after. Mary's shock emotion makes Patrick the lamb because she kills him. He was not aware of what is coming to him until she slammed him with the

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