Literary Analysis Of Lamb To The Slaughter

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The short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” creates an unexpected outcome for the reader using the main character’s love for her child. We see this after the reader meets the main character, Mary Maloney, and her husband and it’s revealed he is going to leave her and their newborn child. In response to this 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.”(p.2) This comes as a big shock to the readers since throughout the story she has been betrayed as a doting wife that would never inflict, or even wish, ill will against her husband. Furthermore she doesn’t want her husband to abandon her and their child to a larger extent that her first instinct is to kill him. After her