Untitled
13 months ago
“The Lamb to the Slaughter” is a short story by: Roald Dahl. This story tells that a nice wonderfully ordinary woman that has a very predictable husband gets a shock by him one day. The setting adds to some of the shock because the story is set in England in an old suburban neighborhood. The characters change a lot in this story. You even get a waft of irony that’s quite funny. And last but not least the theme, this is in a small way hard to find and you have really read in depth to find those small hints of the theme. But to the theme could be not to lose your temper in an unfortunate situation and here’s why.
The characters of the story, Mary Maloney who is pregnant and her husband are the main characters. The beginning of the story brings the feeling of a routine in place. She is waiting for her husband and she knows exactly when he is going to be home, they plan on going out to eat every Thursday and she knew exactly what drink he wanted when he got home. The story also tells how Mary is usually quiet calm and pleasant for example: “There was a slow smiling air about her,” (Pg. 317). She also seems to be very irrational in her decisions. When Mary Maloney finds that her husband is leaving her, she kills him, this is very irrational. She went from a warm and cozy routine woman to a murderer. This gives the feeling that she doesn’t think things through and that it doesn’t take a whole lot to bring out other sides of her.The setting of the story really plays into the insanity of Mrs. Maloney. There is a warm and cozy house that is ready for her hard working husband and the story definetly tells us that she like a cozy and clean house “The room was warm and clean,” (Pg. 317). She is sewing and she has her drink ready and her husbands drink ready for him. He’s gets home and he drinks his drink, she plays the fifties housewife role and then he tells her that he leaving her. Then the setting changes, it goes from warm and cozy to horrified and scary. And now it really changes, it changes to a murder scene and she covers it up. The setting changes drastically as with her changes mood swings of irrationality. It’s safe to say that the setting changes and flows with the rest of the story.The theme of this story is kind hard to find. It is hard to differ one thing from another. But the theme seems to be not to overreact in a bad situation. It is very easy to follow this theme but apparently not for Mary Maloney. She killed him with a leg of lamb: “she brought the leg of lamb down on his head as hard as she could.” This is a huge example of just losing it. This is extremely crazy and it goes with the thing of Mary changing drastically. When Mary Maloney kills him, right there is the theme.This story had its ups and downs but overall it is a great story. The irony of this whole story is that she loves her husband then she kills him with a leg of lamb, and then the detectives on this ate the murder weapon. “The Lamb To The Slaughter” is a story that gives you the creeps but you still like it. This story told it all and more because if you read in-between the lines then you can tell that there is something fishy about it.
