Analysis Of Lamb To The Slaughter

“Lamb to the Slaughter” is an intriguing murder story by Roald Dahl. It was initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, but was ultimately published in Harper's Magazine in September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone. Mary Malony, wife of a senior detective Patrick Maloney, is six months pregnant and waits for her husband to return home after work. She is a typical housewife and religiously does her duties of taking care of her husband’s needs and is engaged in all sorts of domestic chores throughout the day. Her husband decides to leave her and in turn, states to take care of her financially. She is taken aback and in response to this

The economic climate of the country allowed for the women to return to the home and take care of the children. The mood of the country was one of celebration and hope after the wars, but was also one of conformity during the Cold War (Arlene). Throughout the story, Mary is situated in a patriarchal society where she is expected to be in the private sphere of domestic life and is considered unfit for the public sphere. While, on the other had, her husband, Patrick freely moves between these two spheres where his wife takes care of him at home and he is superior to her as well as he makes economical and political decisions by engaging in the public

Black humour is humour that may amuse one but it does not leave one essentially in good cheer. It uses the grotesque or the absurd for comic purposes. It is, in other words, fun but rather morbid. Black humour became widespread in popular culture, especially in literature and film, beginning in the 1950s. It remained popular till the end of the twentieth century. Joseph Heller's novel Catch-22 (1961) is one of the best-known examples in American fiction. The short stories of James Thurber and the stories and novels of Kurt Vonnegut Jr. also offer examples of black humour. The image of the cheerful housewife, Mrs. Maloney in Roald Dahl’s story “Lamb to the Slaughter” suddenly smashing her husband's skull with the frozen joint of meat intended for his dinner is itself an instance of black humour for its unexpectedness and the ugly incongruity of the murder weapon. There is a morbid but funny double meaning, too, in Mary's response to her grocer's question about meat, "I've got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb from the freezer." She did indeed get a leg of lamb from the freezer. The story, told in an apparently simple style, carries a number of meanings within itself. It ends with the giggling of Mary Maloney who is a murderer now. Indeed the situation is funny but it is also simultaneously sad and