Mary Maloney Lamb To The Slaughter

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Until Death Do We Part

In 1996 a total of 2.4% of men were murdered or victims of abuse by their girlfriends/ wives. In the short story, Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl, the character Patrick was murdered by his wife, Mary Maloney. Mary should be held guilty of her crimes due to her actions taken after the crime, the manipulating of the officers, and her knowledge of how to get away with murder.
First she should be charged guilty because of her actions. One example would be, rather than turn herself in or get help after realizing what she had done, she chooses to create an alibi for the time of the crime, and gets rid of the murder weapon. Her knowledge of what the detectives would look for in a crime scene led to her protecting herself from being arrested and leads the reader to the thought that she understood what had happened. Her actions before, during, and after the murder shows that she was experiencing normal thoughts and actions rather than showing insanity.
Secondly, Mary Malony kept information about the murder and tampered with the crime scene. It is told that she didn’t tell the whole full story to the police, which is considered to be keeping information about a crime …show more content…

She continues to beg them to eat, saying things like “Patrick would never forgive me if I didn’t offer hospiality… please eat and have a drink..” The officers finally agreed but only after she had asked them mulitple times. This shows that Mary is able to manipulate people into doing things that, maybe they would not do normally. Even one of the officers said that they usually don’t eat on the job. Mary’s begging to eat the lamb points to her being guilty because she is getting rid of the weapon. No murder weapon leaves it very hard on detectives to find the murderer. Also in the 1950s technology wasn’t as advanced as today, meaning it would be extremely hard to catch a murderer without a weapon in that

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