Lamb To The Slaughter Mary Maloney

Human emotions are ever present throughout our lives. They effect events, decisions, and relationships. Sometimes we control them, but sometimes they control us. The latter is true for Mary Maloney in Roald Dahl’s short story, “Lamb to the Slaughter”. Mrs.Maloney experiences many changes in her emotions, and in the end they get the best of her. Dahl uses language and dialogue to show the motivation for why she undergoes these changes.
In the beginning to the story, Mary Maloney seems to be a typical housewife. She is satisfied with the sense of familiarity and comfort performing womanly duties give her. She stays at home, “glance[ing] at the clock, but without anxiety” (Dahl 1). Even when he is not at home, Mary is constantly thinking of her husband,

Patrick. She feels content with the routine she seems to have when Patrick arrives home, for it was “always a blissful time of day...she was satisfied to sit quiet, enjoying his company” (Dahl 1). She loves being a wife to him, and the way the household seems to run on a set way. That is until Patrick does an unusual thing, he drank more alcohol than he normally does, signaling something is wrong. Because of this, Mary becomes more eager to please than ever, crying “‘I’ll get it!’” (Dahl 1), when Patrick gets up to get another glass. This shows that Mary is thrown off and anxious about the new atmosphere of the home, and wants to make up for it. But Patrick refuses her assistance, and instead tells her shocking news. Mary could only sit there, “watching him with puzzled horror” (Dahl 2). After Patrick is done with her, Mary Maloney is betrayed and confused, as her life is now very different than the routine it once followed.
Mary is now very dazed and shocked as a result of the troubling news, and becomes a victim to denial, because right after Patrick finished talking, “her first instinct was to not believe any of it. She thought perhaps she had imagined the whole thing” (Dahl 2). Mary has been so shocked that she doesn’t know what to do, so she instead resorts back to how things used to be. She still is trying to be a wife to Patrick, whispering “‘I’ll fix the supper’” (Dahl 2). All she knows how to do is live her life in quiet servitude to Patrick, so without him she feels empty. While walking to go get the leg of lamb, she “couldn’t feel her feet touching the floor. She couldn’t feel anything expect a slight sickness...she did everything without thinking” (Dahl 2). Mary has gone into a robotic like state, letting her body, not thought, control her. Upon seeing Patrick, Mary does the unthinkable. She swings the frozen leg of lamb towards Patrick’s head, causing him to collapse and die.
Immediately after, Mary realizes what she has done and seems to have a moment of clarity, her mind becoming clear in face of the consequences she might receive.

She is now methodical, coming up with an alibi and practicing holding a normal conversation in the mirror with the neighborhood grocer (Dahl 2). Returning home, Mary prepares to act shocked when she arrives to the scene of the crime, telling herself if she “found anything unusual or terrible when she got home..she would have to react with greift and horror” (Dahl 3). At this point, Mary is very calculated and in control. She knows how to react and what to do to avoid facing the repercussions of murder. Once back at home, she calls the police, and once they arrive she begins to play the part of a grieving wife, crying endlessly. But she was still well-organized and managed to manipulate the situation into her control. Knowing full and well all she needs to do is get rid of the evidence, her now calculating mood formulates a plan. Still under the rouge of a grief stricken wife, she asks the officers, “Would you do me a favor?...Why don’t you eat up the lamb in the oven?” (Dahl 4). This showcases how methodical she is, using the situation to her

advantage.
In the span of one night, Mary Maloney went from a housewife satisfied to always be complacent, to a methodical murder. She lets her emotions overcome and control her, causing the unfortunate death of her husband We can see these rapidly changing emotions through the language and dialogue Roald Dahl uses throughout the story.