Lamb To The Slaughter Theme Essay

There is a theme of appearance versus reality throughout the story by Ronald Dahl “Lamb to the Slaughter.” This theme is when a person’s body language and facial expression shows otherwise than what they are truly feeling. This means that people around that person may see other than what is actually happening in his or her life. In this short story, this theme is unveiled in a lot ways, such as, the way she cried later laughed, did everything for him even when he was rude, and the way she was first okay with killing her husband. First this theme is shown in the way she cried when she acknowledged her husband; however, she laughed as the cops ate the leg of lamb. After hitting Mr. Patrick over the head with a leg of lamb, then she put the

Mary became overjoyed when Mr. Patrick returned home; however, he must have a strong drink before talking to her. The Maloney’s were supposed to eat out for dinner; however, Mr. Patrick noted that he was tired, at that time Mary offered to cook. “I don’t want it,” (Dahl 28) said Mr. Patrick; however, Mrs. Maloney insisted that he needed to eat a little bit of food. Afterward, he said, “Listen, I’ve got something to tell you.” (Dahl 37) He did not respect his wife enough to include her in the thought process. The news he wanted to tell her was that he wanted a divorce. Suddenly, in shock, she jumped up and voiced “I’ll fix some supper.” (Dahl 48) She went into the basement, and grabbed the first piece of frozen meat that she could unwrap it, and brought it upstairs. When she returned upstairs, she noticed Patrick was looking out of the window. In that instant, she lifted the leg of lamb and hit him over the head with it. The leg of lamb was extremely frozen that she should have just hit him with a steel bar. Lastly, she might have loved him, yet she was okay with killing him. Mrs. Mary might have been verbally abuse by her husband. This may be the reason why she was okay with murdering