Lamb To The Slaughter By Ronald Dahl

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The story “Lamb to the Slaughter” was written by Ronald Dahl. The setting of the story is in the 1950’s at the Maloney household. Patrick Maloney- a detective for their local police station- was married to her wife Mary Maloney. The couple would usually eat out on Thursdays, but when Patrick came home he felt a bit peculiar. Mary asked him what was wrong he ignored her. She asked if they should eat out and he still ignored her. Out of nowhere, Patrick told Mary to sit down. He told her that he was going to get a divorce. Mary was dismayed, astonished. She told him that he could not leave without a proper meal. She went to the freezer and obtained the leg of lamb. She brought it to the table and took the paper off of it. Discreetly, she went behind Patrick, and delivered a painstaking hit. Patrick fell …show more content…

Mary went to the store to buy potatoes and a can of peas. When she came home, she dropped her groceries and made the room look like Patrick resisting the intruder. Mary dialed the police operator and the detective’s came quickly. Mary knew most of them because Patrick worked with them. They asked her what had happened and she told her everything. Two detectives collaborated about who might have killed him, and they thought they a women did .She offered all the detectives whiskey and they gladly accepted it. It was quarter past ten and she realized that the meat was still in the oven. She offered it to the Detectives and again, they accepted it. They were eating the delectable meat but Mary was in the other room laughing because the one detective said that the evidence could be right under their noses, and they ate all of the remaining evidence. The conflict in this story is that Patrick wanted to have a divorce with Mary. The climax in the story was Patrick being murdered. The dramatical irony is that the reader knows who kills Patrick but the detectives do

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