Literary Analysis Of A Lamb To The Slaughter

People all over the world act and see things differently, but emotions remain the same. Emotions are an inherent property of all humans; everybody learns to express emotions as people grow. One emotion mentioned in Roald Dahl’s short story, “A Lamb to the Slaughter,” is love. Love is a strong attachment to an individual that could lead to a complex. Mary, in this story has a love complex for Patrick, and it got so bad that she resorted to murder to keep Patrick for herself. Even though she is seen as a murderer in this story; Mary is still a kind person at heart. Everybody has a dark side to them, sometimes they just do not show it. She commits the perfect crime and destroys the evidence perfectly. Mary Maloney is very loyal. When she is waiting for her husband to …show more content…
She then calmly removes the evidence of by cooking it. After she kills Patrick, she thinks, “What were the laws about murderers with unborn children” (3). She start thinking about her unborn child rather than her husband and does not seem to care about him at all. She then proceeds to rehearse the conversation that she is going to have, “Hello Sam, I want some potatoes please, Sam. Yes, and I think a can of peas” (3), several times in front of the mirror. After she kills him, she goes to the store and buys food for her alibi. After she comes back from the grocery shop she easily breaks down, “All the old love and longing for him welled up inside her..., and she began to cry her heart out” (4). She is contradictory, one moment she is completely composed, and then when she comes back to find her husband dead she is in panic. She calls the police while crying and says something intriguing, “Who’s speaking?” Mrs. Maloney. Mrs. Patrick Maloney” (4). Why does she get her own name wrong and say her husband’s? Maybe she has identity problems of some sort or is just so traumatized by killing her husband that she messed up and said the wrong

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Literary Analysis Lamb To The Slaughter