Lamb to the Slaughter By Roald Dahl
In Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the slaughter,” the behaviour of
the characters makes us shiver.
The story starts off with Mary Maloney‘s husband walking in from work
and sitting down in the armchair. She then made him a drink and asked
him he was tired. She then asked him if he wanted supper but he said
no. later he said he had something important to say and for a few
moments she stood shocked. She went to get the supper out any way but
when she came back up he was standing next to the window, she then
smacked him round the back of the head smashing his scull. She acted
normally as not arouse suspicion. She went to the shop and then went
home and called the police. They came round and investigated the crime
scene, and looked for the murder weapon. Mary offered the lamb to the
police officers to eat and they did and by doing so eating the only
bit of evidence proving it was her.
At first we see Mary Maloney as a gentle, loving person but we later
find out she is capable of murder. We don’t like thinking that we are
a bad judge of character but this is the way Roald Dahl wanted. Roald
Dahl writes nearly all his stories with a twist in them. He has a
particular style of writing that lulls the reader to think one thing
but to later twist that belief.
My first impression of Mary Maloney was a happy woman with a lovely
husband. “Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come him from
work.” and “…went forward to kiss him as he came in”. These lines to
me show her as a typical wife waiting for her husband to come home and
to give her the love and attention she needs. Her personality is quite
lovely one at first. She waited, looking at the clock to see how long ...
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... blame me
too much.” He is not as cruel as I I first though but that’s a theme
all the way through the story, not being like we first thought.
After I read the story I felt hat the title was quite appropriate
because the way she killed him was rather cruel. She comes up behind
him with him having no idea she has the large piece of lamb in her
hands and hits him and ultimately kills him. He was like a lamb, weak
and innocent. Well he wasn’t innocent as such but he could have sorted
that out after he had the discussion.
In Conclusion, the behavior of Mary Maloney made me shiver because I
had misjudged her right from the beginning and did not realise what
she was capable of. I think Roald Dahl has written this story in a
magnificent way. He captures the reader and wants them to carry on to
the very end. He is no doubt one of the best writers of all time.
if she had fed him steak the night before because of the undigested red meat. The
In Lamb to the Slaughter, Mary Maloney, doting housewife pregnant with her first child, commits a heinous crime against her husband. After he tells her that he is leaving, she become distraught and strikes him in the head with a leg of lamb. Afterwards, Mary...
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Weintraub, Stanley. ""Doll's House" Metaphor Foreshadowed in Victorian Fiction." Nineteenth-Century Fiction 13: 67-69. Web. 6 Jan. 2011.
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the peoples views on marriage and the roles of men and women – with or
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