Lamb To The Slaughter Betrayal

Many people will experience betrayal in their lifetime. Whether a child is betrayed when a trusted parent abuses them or an adult is cheated on by their spouse - betrayal is abhorrent and unpredictable. The main character, Mary Maloney, in “Lamb to the slaughter” sat eagerly waiting for her husband to arrive from a long day’s shift at the police department. However, passionate, pregnant, and peaceful Mrs. Maloney is greeted home with an “I’m leaving you” speech from her husband. In “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Roald Dahl enforces the meaningful message - betrayal is unacceptable. “He, who had done more than any human being to draw her out of the caves of her secret, folded life, now threw her down into deeper recesses of fear and doubt. The fall was greater than she had ever known, because

When Patrick Maloney broke the news to his wife, Mary Maloney, that he was planning to leave her, “Her first instinct was not to believe any of it, to reject it all. It occurred to her that perhaps he hadn't even spoken, that she herself had imagined the whole thing. Maybe, if she went about her business and acted as though she hadn't been listening, then later, when she sort of woke up again, she might find none of it had ever happened.”(Dahl 2). Patrick Maloney’s news of deception is the first betrayal in Dahl’s quick read. Mary Maloney experienced shock when she heard what her husband was telling her. This deceitful news causes Mary so much pain that “Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.”(2). The grief she experiences provokes her into murdering her husband, the second betrayal in the story. Patrick caused Mary Maloney, who had been so in love with her husband when he walked through the door, ended up murdering her husband - leaving her values behind