Use Of Irony In Lamb To The Slaughter

Justice Shall Be Served

In “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “Trifles,” Roald Dahl and Susan Glaspell use irony to emphasize the women’s strengths and ridicule the men’s weaknesses.

In “Lamb to the Slaughter” Roald Dahl uses irony to emphasize the police officer's intellectual incompetence. For example, Dahl writes “She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a favor… That’s why it ought to be easy to find” (9). When this is said, the men are eating the lamb leg, which they have no idea is the murder weapon since they tend to think the murder weapon is something more traditional, like a “spanner.”Because the men fail to realize that the murder weapon could be anything, they also fail to realize that they eliminated Mrs. Maloney as a suspect.

For example, as she rehearses her alibi to cover up the murder of her husband, Mary tells herself,“Both the smile and the voice were coming out better now. She rehearsed it several times more. Then she ran downstairs, took her coat, went out the back door, down the garden, into the street” (Dahl 5). Because she is such a natural actress, Sam, the grocer, never suspects he is talking to a killer. Thus, Mrs. Maloney proves she is a very quick thinker. The readers know that Mrs. Malony is concocting something to say to the store clerk so that when she goes to the store, her alibi will later be believed, which it was. The police, though, are unaware that Mrs. Malony did this. Since her story seems truthful they do no further investigating. Later, Mary Maloney uses her acting skills to put on the mask of a grieving widow and slowly convinces the police officers to drink alcohol on the job. Dahl writes, “Why don’t you have one yourself” (5). As most people know, it is illegal to drink on the job, ESPECIALLY police officers. Mrs. Malony knows that if she gets them to take even a sip of alcohol, any “evidence” they collect will be unreliable and disregarded since once they have even an ounce of alcohol in their system, they are unreliable themselves. By doing this, Mrs. Maloney was sure she would be able to get away with the murder, which she

Hale and Mrs. Peter's high intelligence. When Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale start talking about Mr. Wright Mrs. Peters claims she thought he was a good man, then Mrs. Hale tells her who he really was. In the text, Glaspell writes, “But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him..” (9). Here, Mrs. Hale points out how she knows Mr. Wright wasn't the man he seemed to be. However, Mrs. Peters keeps saying “The law is the law.” Mrs. Hale is trying to show Mrs. Peters who Mr. Wright was: a cold, harsh man. This way, she can understand why Mrs. Wright did what she did. The irony in this is that the men seem to think that Mr. Wright was quite literally a “right” man. He seemed put together on the outside, like a kind, laid-back gentleman. However, the women see past his looks and come to the conclusion that Mr. “wright” was actually a very abusive man towards his wife and practically took away her spark, which could’ve possibly been a motive to kill her husband. For example, when the women found the dead bird, with its neck wrung. After knowing that Mr. Wright killed Mrs. Wright's bird it shows us that he indeed was a harsh, cruel man. Also, Mrs. Hale points out how Mrs. Wright used to sing, used to be happy until she was with Mr. Wright, which shows us he took a piece of her away as time went on. Mrs. Peters being “married to the law,” could've told the men about the evidence, but she chose