Examples Of Irony In Lamb To The Slaughter

In literature as if life, things aren’t as they seem to be. “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahi is a short story about a woman named Mary Maloney’s reaction when her husband, Patrick Maloney comes home with shocking news for her. Irony is when someone does/says something that departs from what we expect them to say or do. There are three types of irony, the situational, dramatic, and verbal irony. In this short story, there is situational irony and verbal irony. It is clear that irony can add suspense and propel the action in a story. One clear example of irony occurs when the police officers are wondering where the murder weapon could be when they are feasting on it. For example, “Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?” (11). This is ironic because the murder weapon is in fact under their noses since they are eating it. They wouldn’t expect to be eating the actual murder weapon. This is verbal irony because the police officers couldn’t find the murder weapon but ended up actually eating it. This adds suspense because they had been looking for the weapon and couldn’t find it, but they were eating it all along.

For example, “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” (4). From the beginning of the story the reader could infer that Mary is a pregnant lady who loves her husband but, in reality, Mary Maloney swings a leg of lamb to her husband’s head killing him. This type of irony is situational because no one would have expected a lovely woman who loves her husband very much to be the one to kill him. This adds suspense to the story because the reader is eager to see what happens after she kills her husband and is wondering if she gets