Lamb To The Slaughter Essay

“Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl follows the life of Mary Maloney and her husband Patrick. Patrick gets home from work and tells Mary some detrimental news, when Mary decides to pull a frozen leg of lamb out of the freezer for dinner and ends up slamming it into the back of his head. She adds it into the oven and goes to the store to pick up a few things. When she returns, she realizes what she had done and she calls the police and they announce Patrick dead. They then devour the leg of lamb/the murder weapon. The theme of the story is fear can cause people to make impulsive decisions. Mary had cared for her husband very much and feared she would lose him and be left alone with her child. This caused Mary to hide the murder and become

This can be shown when Patrick (Mary’s husband) comes home from work. “I’ll get it!’ She cried, jumping up.” This illustrates Mary’s love for her husband and how she cares deeply for him. She wants to help him after a long day. She wants to help him, even whild six Additionally, this can be shown through the dialogue, “Darling, Shall I get your slippers?” Even while six months pregnant, Mary still wants to get her husband's things and care for him, even though it is evident that he doesn’t want her care. She later questions, “What is it, darling? What’s the matter?” She asks this after he explains that he has some news. Showing her worry for not only him, but also any problem that the conversation may arise. She wants to make sure not only there is nothing wrong with either of them, but also her child. As the story continues and we learn more about Mary and her character traits, we realize that she is extremely kind and puts others before herself occasionally. She always ensures everyone is okay and everyone is in

After Patrick told her the news, the author stated, “Watching her with a kind of dazed horror as he went further and further from her with each word,” proving that she loved him, but it felt as if he had slipped away from her due to their conversation. We as the reader don’t understand exactly what the conversation was about, but we can infer that he might have been leaving and going somewhere without her, although this is up to individual interpretation. When he had finished telling her the news, he stated, “Of course I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after.” Although she worried about not just her but also her child, she didn’t want the money. She wanted her husband, not some other person to look after her. We can also infer that when born, she would’ve wanted the child to have their father figure in their life. Fear caused her to overthink about the things Patrick was explaining to