Lamb To The Slaughter C

Lamb to the slaughter c.e.l

The short story ‘Lamb to the slaughter’ by Roald Dahl is a very interesting story I enjoyed it very much.

Dahl’s short story opens with Mary Maloney waiting for her husband to get home. He arrives home and tells her he is leaving her. Then she kills him, cooks the weapon (leg of lamb) she goes to the grocery store and returns and calls the police. The police arrive. They question her, eat the lamb and leave

At the beginning of the story Mary is depicted as the typical loving wife. At the beginning we see her looking forward to her husband getting home from work. She takes his coat gives him whiskey and greets him with a kiss. A quote from the story to show this Darling, shall I get your slippers’ these where admirable qualities and shows her love for Patrick but it could be too much for him. Because she could be a bit clingy. Mary can also be regarded as being tense and impatient and our admiration begins to falter because she talks to much tries to be super efficient and won’t listen to Patrick.

The most obvious criticism of Mary comes from the fact that she viciously murders her husband. She could have discussed the situation with her husband instead of taking his life however, it can be argued that her actions were also admirable because she is pregnant and only thinking about the baby.’ What were the laws of murder with an unborn child?’ Mary can be further admired for her strong maternal instinct. She was concerned about how she would bring up the unborn child. She was selfless for her child not even worrying about herself.

The construction of a convincing alibi could also be thought of an admirable action because she thinks very quickly. She also carries it off very skilfully it worked very well because she wasn’t caught.

Once more, however criticism can be made regarding her action. She is very sly and dishonest. She is very cunning with what she did and how she did it.

Mary deception of the police further muddies our opinion of her. She makes them eat the lamb ‘why don’t you eat up that leg of lamb in the oven’ but her actions are wrong and frightening. She is very cunning to do such and evil thing.

Overall I criticise Mary Maloney. I think she is a very sick and evil person. She did kill him but she is pregnant so I see why she lashed out. But it was absolutely sick to make them eat the weapon. But she was only thinking about her baby so I could see why people would admire her.