Lamb To The Slaughter Mary Maloney Character Traits

“I’ve learned over the years that people are human and have mood swings, regardless of how talented they are. Today, I’m looking at life from a realistic point of view instead of the way I would want things to be.” - Otis Williams. Everyone has mood swings, but sometimes people go too far. In “Lamb To The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl we have a character who goes too far. Mary Maloney goes from a loving wife to killing her husband, Patrick Maloney, and she also laughs at the end when she gets away with it. This is why, Mary Maloney is obsessive and not mentally stable because she is pregnant.

First, Mary Maloney is obsessive over Patrick Maloney. In “The Lamb To The Slaughter” is says, “She merely wanted to satisfy herself that each minute that went by made it nearer the time when he would come home.” (Dahl, 1). This means, that Mary only satisfied herself by thinking of when she would be home with Patrick Maloney. The story states “She moved uneasily in her chair. "But you have to have supper. I can easily fix you something. I'd like to do it. We can

have lamb. Anything you want. Everything's in the freezer."” (Dahl, 1). To put context, Mary Maloney is very excited and ready to make Patrick food and fix supper for him although he doesn’t want it. Lastly, the text says that Mary loves how Patrick never complains about being tired, then he complains about being tired. To summarize, this means that Mary just loves everything about him even if it is not true, she is obsessed over him.

Second, The reason for Mary’s changed behavior is with pregnancy. In the book it is wrote that “...without any pause, she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.” (Dahl, 2) This means, that without a pause Mary goes from a loving wife to killing her husband in a minute, which is a example of a mood swing. American Pregnancy states that mood swings in Pregnancy happens because of “...changes in your metabolism, or by the hormones estrogen and progesterone.” In the first page it states that Mary is pregnant so this is why she had the mood swings. The text states, “what about the baby? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both -- mother and child? Did they wait until the baby was born? What did they do? Mary Maloney didn't know and she wasn't prepared to take a chance.” (Dahl, 2) In other words, Mary is more worried about the baby’s punishment then her own, this is a normal protective trait of pregnancy.

Third, with Mary’s behavior in “Lamb to the Slaughter” we can see that Mary didn’t already have a plan and made one up on the way, and the plan worked.

In the story, “She went downstairs to the freezer and took hold of the first object she found…” (Dahl, 2) What this means, is that Mary just pulled the first thing out, she didn’t have a plan for what to kill Patrick with. For example, “...That was better. Both the smile and the voice sounded better now. She practiced them several times more.” (Dahl, 2) This means, that Mary was practicing what to say to Sam and she still needed to figure out what her story was, it is more solid evidence that Mary didn’t have a plan beforehand. Another thing, Mary laughed at the end of the story when the detectives ate the lamb and didn’t expect anything. This proves, that Mary’s quick plan has worked, and Mary was laughing because she had gotten away with

it.

To sum it up, Mary Maloney is not mentally stable due to Pregnancy, and that is why she acts like how she does. First, Mary Maloney is obsessive over her husband, Patrick Maloney. Second, Mary Maloney went crazy because of her pregnancy. Lastly, Mary quickly made up her plan, and before she never would of killed Patrick until her mood swing. In conclusion, with all of these reasons we can infer that Mary Maloney is crazy because of pregnancy.