Examples Of Irony In Lamb To The Slaughter

Roald Dahl’s text “Lamb to the Slaughter” has three different types of irony that made the story have surprising outcomes. First, Mrs. Maloney tells her husband about the meat in the freezer that he can have without moving but later on in the text, it seems that it has a different meaning making it verbal irony. Mary will say to her husband, “There’s plenty of meat and stuff in the freezer, and you can have it right here and not even move out of the chair” (Dahl 2). Partick, further on into the story was killed by the lamb which was from the freezer which is the weapon that killed him, and he doesn’t even have to move since he is dead on the ground. Mary’s statement sounded literal but later on, in the text, it has a different meaning. It also foreshadowed what Mary would do because it gives the weapon’s location and what will happen to Patrick.

In the text, it says, “For her, this was always a blissful time of day” and “She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door or moved slowly across the room with long strides” (Dahl 1). It is expected that Mary would always try to protect her husband and not want her family to fall apart but it turns out that her emotions have been hurt and she went to the extent of killing her husband. This is situational irony because what was expected to happen changed as Patrick told Mary something and that had affected her emotions negatively that lead her to kill him. Lastly, while eating the lamb leg the policemen are discussing the murder weapon and how it is somewhere near, they also expect it to be a piece of metal can cause Patrick’s skull to be smashed to pieces this is situational irony as only one character in the story knows the murder