How Does Mary Maloney Lead To The Slaughter Insanity

Insanity Making Its Debut According to Fathers For Life, “Based on supplemental data received, 77 percent of murder victims in 1995 were males, and 88 percent were persons 18 years or older.” In Roald Dahl’s short story “Lamb to the Slaughter,” the main character Mary Maloney also deals with this as she too kills her husband. She kills her spouse because he says the he is going to leave her. This changes Mary’s views toward her husband and does not love him the way she used to leading to the murder. In “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Mary Maloney kills her husband Patrick, but was not an insane person at the beginning of the story, this shows how people change based on events that take place in their lives.
Forthwith, in the beginning of story,

This causes Mary to change dynamically from the beginning of the story to the end. When Mary’s husband said that he was leaving her, she does not take it well. She does, quite in fact, not want to believe the statement at all. She refuses to let Patrick leave and does the only thing she is able to do at the moment, “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and 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,” (Dahl 3). Mary is in so much shock that she kills her husband with the dinner they were to have that night: a leg of lamb. This is important because it shows how Mary changes her motives from the beginning of the story thus far. At first, Mary does not want anything to happen to Patrick. She wants to take care of him and satisfy his needs. However, the shock hits Mary from this event and it makes her change and not want anything to do with her husband resulting in her killing him. This now changes how Mary’s overview on everything about her

This will allow her tracks as the perpetrator to be erased, ensuring that no one can find any evidence that would lead to her as the killer. She guilts the detectives into eating the lamb, “Please, she begged. Please eat it… It’d be a favor to me if you eat it up. Then you can go on with your work again afterwards,” (Dahl 7). Mary explains that Patrick-if he were still alive-would have been disappointed if the detectives left without anything to eat. This is significant to Mary’s transformation from being a placid women to going insane. She emotionally convinces the police officers and detectives to eat the lamb because she “feels bad” that they have done so much work with no refreshments. She says the right after they are done eating the lamb they can go back to work, but little do they know that the lamb is the only evidence they need and will just end up searching an empty