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Gilad Bronstein

Mrs. Lapiner

English 1, Period 4

20 December 2019

Looks Can be Deceiving

When people look innocent, it doesn’t mean that they are. In Dahl’s “Lamb to the

Slaughter,” it shows Mary Maloney an innocent pregnant woman killing her husband

Patrick because he wanted a divorce. Mary decides to go to the store to buy ingredients

to make dinner for her dead husband. When she gets home she calls the police and

have them come to investigate. Mary gives the police the food that she was making for

Patrick because she couldn’t eat, but little did the police know the leg of lamb was the

murder weapon. In Dahl’s short tory, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” he uses the techniques of

suspense, symbolism, and dramatic irony/ dark humor to get readers more intrigued

with the story.

Dahl involves his audience in the story by using the technique of suspense within

the plot to keep readers on their toes. When Patrick got home it was like a normal

couple. Patrick Maloney didn’t like to talk until after he finished his first drink. Patrick

was talking to Mary, “It didn’t take long, four or five minutes at most, and she sat still

through it all… with puzzled horror”(2). This shows suspense because the readers don’t

know what was said between them and had to make assumptions to what was said.

The reader knows that something that was said scared Mary enough to kill her

husband. Mary went to get meat from the freezer to make for dinner and attacked

Patrick from behind, “She stepped back waiting, and the strange thing was that he
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remained standing there for at least four or five seconds”(2). When Mary hit Patrick in

the back of the head with a frozen leg of lamb he was still standing. The suspense that

was there was what was going to be Patricks reaction. The readers thought that he

would turn around and attack Mary for hitting him in the back of the head with a frozen

leg of lamb. Dahl uses the technique of suspense to keep readers thinking and reading.

He also uses techniques of symbolism to keep the reader reading the story.

Dahl uses the nursery rhyme “Mary had a little Lamb,” to name Mary Maloney

and to create a dark/innocent story. Mary takes all her time to try to be the loving wife to

Patrick. Mary killed Patrick like a butcherer kills a lamb. Mary was shown as an

innocent, loving wife at the beginning of the story. When In the beginning of the story

the readers meet Mary Maloney, “This was her sixth month expecting a child”(1). Mary

Maloney was six months pregnant when she killed her husband Patrick. The story was

made around the nursery rhyme “Mary had a little Lamb.” The little lamb in the story is

the unborn baby and Mary Maloney is Mary from the rhyme. After Patrick talked to Mary

she went to go get meat to make for dinner, “She lifted it out, and looked at it. It was

wrapped in paper, so she took off the paper and looked at again… a leg of lamb”(2).

Mary went to get meat out of the freezer to make for dinner even though Patrick said he

wasn’t hungry. She looked at the leg of lamb and decided to hit Patrick in the back of

the head with it and kill him. Dahl uses the nursery rhyme in a very dark and disturbing

way. H also uses the techniques of dramatic irony and dark humor to make the story

more interesting.

In the short story Dahl uses dramatic irony with a bit of dark humor to get readers

wanting to read more of the interesting story. Mary had an internal conflict about should
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she kill him or should she leave him alone. Mary was worried for her baby after she

killed Patrick even though he said that he would give her the money to take care of

herself and the baby. After Mary kills Patrick, “All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed

him”(2). This shows dark humor because it sounds like Mary didn’t care that she killed

her husband Patrick. She killed him because he wanted a divorce. It also sounded like

Mary was trying to make it like she did the right thing. Mary called the police and said

that she came home and found her husband Patrick dead on the floor, “It’s probably

right under our noses. What do you think Jack?”(4). Mary was making a leg of lamb in

the oven for Patrick but because he was dead she felt like she couldn’t eat so she

offered it to the police. But little did the police know that they were eating the murder

weapon.

The techniques of suspense, symbolism, and dramatic irony/dark humor were

used correctly by Dahl to make a nice and interesting short story. Mary and Patrick are

a couple that don’t see eye to eye. Mary can not take care of herself and a baby and

she was scared so she reacted by killing Patrick. Throughout the story Dahl shows how

insecure Mary Maloney was and that is why she killed her husband when he told her

that he wanted a divorce.