Literary Analysis Of Lamb To The Slaughter

There are thousands of fictional short stories written by many different authors, but some stories are more enjoyable and stay with people than other stories. One fictional story that truly is enjoyable more than others is “Lamb to the Slaughter”. Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” is the greatest story due to its Plot and Theme. The story of Mary Maloney who sits home and waits for her husband to get home from work ends up murdering her husband and the events that take place make “Lamb to the Slaughter” the greatest story. “Lamb to the Slaughter” is the greatest story because of its intriguing plot. A woman named Mary Maloney is pregnant and sews at home waiting for her beloved husband Patrick to get home from work. Patrick

Whatever is said puts the married couple farther and farther away. Mary goes down to get something for dinner as she thinks that maybe if she acted as if she wasn't listening nothing would happen. The climax of the story is when Patrick yells at her not to cook because he is going out, Dahl continues the plot when it says, “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and 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 3). Mary turns out to kill Patrick. She throws the lamb in the oven and goes to the grocery shop. She puts a smile on and gets fruit and cheese cake for Patrick. She goes home and sees the body on the floor and calls the cops, the events that she took after she kills him gives her a perfect cover up and leaves the cops searching for a murderer that is already proven innocent. This plot and the way the events occured makes this story the greatest because the reader is allowed to interpret what was said between Patrick and Mary and what led Mary to kill he

Through all of the events that occur in the story the theme stands out. The takeaway from a story that seems almost silly is revealed when the cops are at the table eating the lamb that Mary Maloney killed her husband with. The theme of the story is evident when one cop goes on to say, “Personally, I think it’s right here on the premises. Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?”(Dahl 6). The scene is ironic because the cops are looking for the murder weapon and think its right under their noses when it literally is, due to the fact that they are eating it. Through this ironic quote the message that we takeaway is that sometimes the things someone is looking for is right in front of them and they don't even know it. The cops look past the fact that Mary could be the murderer because her cover up checks out. Sometimes people are looking for things in life and don't realize that they already have what they are looking for. This theme make the story great because Dahl brought it out in a strange way but still had a major impact on the reader. The theme will stick with the reader because dahl’s use of an irony will stick in the readers head. When looking for a theme in dahls strange story his theme comes into play. This theme makes Dahl’s story great because it has a lot of meaning that sometimes people