Mary Maloney's Lamb Of The Slaughter

Based from Mary Maloney’s thoughts and feelings during her narration of the story of “Lamb of the Slaughter”, there is a few characters traits and details about her to learn. Firstly, it’s clear that after reading the story that Mary is a psychopath. After killing her husband Patrick she expresses how clear her mind is, “It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden.” (Dahl 13). Normally, we would expect someone who had just murdered someone they love to be panicking about it, but she expresses that she feels the opposite. Secondly, she appears to be obsessive towards her husband. Mary expresses her excitement of waiting for Patrick to come home, “merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.” (10). This proves that Mary knows the exact time her husband will be home and enjoys waiting

Firstly, she is very deceitful towards the police, tricking them into eating the lamb leg, “Why don’t you eat up that lamb that’s in the oven?”(17).This proves that Mary deceitful in tricking the police into eating the evidence of her husband’s murder. Secondly, Mary is manipulative, pretending to praise the police on being good friends with Patrick, “Here you all are, and good friends of dear Patrick’s too, and helping to catch the man who killed him.”(17). Mary is being manipulative by make the police feel like they have a good job in finding Patrick’s killer because they are his friends, even though she is the real killer. Lastly, Mary is insistent throughout the entire story, determined to take care of Patrick, “But darling, you must eat! I’ll fix it anyway, and then you can have it or not, as you like.”(12). This proves she insists that Patrick should eat something even though he already said disagreed. All these character details are found in Mary conversations with the other characters in the short