Character Analysis: Mary Maloney

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Recommended: Lamb to the slaughter, a short story by roald dahl

"All [women] had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children," (Friedan 16). This philosophy may seem out dated today. With the great feminist movements from the women of the Victorian Era and the 1970's the idea that women can only be housewives is a thing of the past, but not of the distant past. In "Lamb to the Slaughter" the main character is the perfect housewife who faces the problem of losing her husband; a real tragedy for any woman at anytime, but even more so for the totally dependent, pregnant housewife. “Lamb to the Slaughter,” by Roald Dahl, is one of those stories that forces readers to question what is good and what is evil, what is just and what is unfair. Roald Dahl forces his readers to think and, whether they are children or adults, he pushes them to question their individual beliefs and their ways of thinking. Dahl, who is most famous for his children’s books, such as Matilda, The BFG, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, possesses an entertaining fascination with punishing those who deserve to suffer for their crimes and rewarding the underdog. As a boy, Dahl was upset by the treatment younger received at the hands of school faculty and older boys, but punished such evil doers in his children's novels as an adult. In Matilda the evil Headmistress loses her job, as well as control of the school, after the students rebel. On the other hand, Matilda, a curious, clever little girl who has been verbally and emotionally abused by her family, receives the powers of telekinesis as a reward for her persistent pursuit of knowledge. Ironically enough, Dahl wrote "Lamb to the Slaughter" after a meeting with Ian Fleming the year her married his first wife, Patricia Neal,...

... middle of paper ...

...ve that Mary is guilty, and dislike her because she does not receive any punishment, but “Lamb to the Slaughter,” much like Mary Maloney herself, is more complex than that, so consider more what Mary goes through in the moments leading up to her husband’s death and afterwards.

Works Cited

Piedmont-Marton, Elisabeth. "An overview of "Lamb to the Slaughter"." Short Stories for Students (2002): 1-2. Literature Resource Center. Web. 22 Sept 2011.

Liukkonen, Petri. "Roald Dahl (1916-1990)." Books and Writers. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Sept 2011. .

"Mood Swings During Pregnancy." American Pregnancy Association. American Pregnancy Association, n.d. Web. 22 Sept 2011.

Friedan, Betty. The Feminine Mystique. 9th ed. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1963. 15-17, 235. Print.

Dahl, Roald. “Lamb to the Slaughter.” 1963. 1-4. Print.

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