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The role women in crime prevention
The lamb of slaughter
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Imagine getting away with your husband’s murder and having the police eat the murder weapon; what a perfect cover-up. Mary Maloney is the pregnant wife of Patrick Maloney and the one who murdered her husband. Patrick Maloney is a policeman who has decided that he was going to leave his wife. Pregnant wife, Mary Maloney, was waiting for her husband to come home. When her husband, Patrick came home, he was acting very distant, and this made Mary worried. He eventually told her that he was leaving, and that sent Mary into shock. Her response was to continue to make Patrick dinner despite his refusal. When she went to get dinner ready, she went to the freezer to get a lamb leg, and when she went back upstairs, she swung the lamb leg at Patrick’s …show more content…
Mary was able to manipulate the police by appearing to be kind and hospitable, and using the memory of her dead husband to get them to eat the lamb. Mary was able to deceive police because of her pregnancy and alibi. Mary was betrayed, which caused her to act the way she did. Focus of this essay was to see how Mary’s mind worked throughout her whole ploy to cover up her husband’s murder. All this evidence leads to why Mary decided not to tell the police to kill her husband, and why she killed her husband in the first place. Mary could have been bottling up her emotions about being underappreciated, so when Patrick told her he was leaving, that probably set her off and caused her to go into shock. The future could be that Mary gives birth and is able to provide for her child, without anyone ever knowing who killed Patrick
It was a normal evening in the Maloney home. Mrs. Mary Maloney sat sewing, while waiting for her husband to return home after an involved day as a police officer. Around 5 o’clock Mr. Maloney returns home with shocking news and… Bang! …a leg of lamb hit over his head and Mr. Maloney falls to the ground dead. All evidence and theories, point to Mrs. Maloney being the killer of her husband, but why? Mrs. Maloney did not kill her husband out of anger after the recent marriage incident, but she did it as a result of mental anguish, self defense and trauma inflicted upon her by her husband. All these events explain exactly why Mrs. Maloney murdered her husband out of reasonable measures.
To illustrate, in the author’s words, “Why don’t you eat up that lamb that’s in the oven?” (Dahl, p. 324) In this quote the author proposes that Mary deceived the detectives into eating the murder weapon. This quote models the author’s use of character development as Mary went from the beginning of being good-natured and honest to deceitful. This brings the immoral evolution of Mary out. Moreover, the author plainly asserts, “And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.” (Dahl, p. 324) In this quote, the author describes how Mary laughed as the detectives ate the murder weapon. This quote reminds the reader that Mary is now “innocent” in a different sense than she was in the beginning of the story. “Perfect”, unaware, self-sacrificing, wife Mary is gone. Revealed to the readers is wicked, manipulative murderer
At first though, Mary became very depressed, and she didn’t want to go anywhere or do anythi. Her only child had been killed and now she was alone. She felt compelled to forgive her son’s killer because she knew that would be the only way to get out of the state of depression. She contacted the prison where her son’s killer was staying. She sought permission to speak to her son’s killer. She wanted to find out why he would ever do something like this to
Mary begs the police to eat the leg of lamb saying, “It’d be a favor to me if you'd eat it up,” (9). Mary insists the officers stay for supper because Patrick would be truly disappointed in Mary is she wasn’t a good host to his fellow friends and coworkers. The officers hesitate but soon enough obey because they feel pity to the woman who just lost her husband. The officers grab the lamb and talk amongst themselves in the kitchen about the murder case. “ Personally, I think it's right here on the premises. Probably right under our very noses,” (9). This being case, this is dramatic irony because they are eating the murder weapon. Hence, clearing Mary and causing her to get away with murder.
Before Mrs. Maloney was confronted by her husband with shocking news, she loved him and offered to help him whenever she could. Mary was always looking forward to seeing her husband come home and enjoying his company. She loved how he came through the door from work and how he kept quiet about his tiredness. Usually a pregnant woman killing her husband is no accident, but this particular case is strange because, at first she loved her husband and all of a sudden she kills him. This observation supports Mary Maloney’s temporal case of insanity because at first she loved her husband, Patrick, and then she assassinates him.
Life. Life is what gives you the ability to think, to speak, to breath and to be a part of this world. It is worth more than any amount of money, your life is priceless. Without it, we would seize to exist; our world would be utter darkness. Honourable Judge, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, today Mary Maloney stands on trial before you. A woman who took the away the life of not just an innocent citizen, but her very own husband. She was thought to be an ordinary women, a typical housewife and a soon to be loving mother. However, the facts presented before you today conclude that Mary Maloney was not just an unordinary detective’s wife, but also a murder. On April 13th 1953, the life of Patrick Maloney came to a tragic end because of leg of lamb in the hands of Mary Maloney. For the following reasons, Mary Maloney, wife of the deceased, is guilty of 1st degree murder.
Mary Maloney from “Lamb To The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl is a kind, devoted and pregnant housewife who cannot handle rejection from her loved ones like her husband Patrick. To begin, Mary loves Patrick her husband one-sidedly. The Text states that “For her, this was a wonderful time of the day. She knew he didn’t want to speak until the first drink was finished, and she was satisfied to sit quietly, enjoying his company” (1). The fact that she knew his preferences and modifies her character accordingly just because she enjoyed his company is enough to showcase that Mary was in love with Patrick but on the other hand the fact that Patrick preferred finishing his drink first instead of uttering a single word signifies that he did not felt the same way Mary did.
After Patrick Maloney tells his wife that he wants a divorce, Mary’s only reaction is to prepare dinner, but as she comes up from the cellar with a lamb leg, Mary hits her husband with the frozen solid leg, and his body falls, bringing her out of shock. She creates an alibi and goes to the grocer to get vegetables for dinner. She comes home and is hysterical when she “finds” her dead husband on the floor and calls the police. Mary feeds the lamb to the detectives as they say the murder weapon is probably “right under their noses”.____________________
In the two stories, “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “Desiree’s Baby,” the two authors portrays a identical story about a wife and husband whom love each other with love, affection, and devotion. But all good things must come to the end; especially when someone dies. All things were good for the couples until they didn’t stay committed, but they broke apart.In the story “Desiree’s Baby,” written by Kate Chopin, Desiree, the wife in the story, is the adopted daughter of Madame Valmonde. She was found by Armand, who is later on her husband, and he fell in love with her. Furthermore, the two couple are married and have a child. When the baby starts getting its color and starts growing, Armand realizes the baby has African ancestry. This becomes to
After she has a set tone she goes to the neighborhood's grocery store and makes it a proof of her not being there in time of the murder. When she goes back home from buying the groceries and realizes that her husband’s body is still there on the floor. To protect herself from getting arrested in her husband’s murder she tries to artifice the police by calling them and reporting that “Patrick’s dead.” This makes the police believe that Mary is not a suspect and instead of an ordinary wife who's emotionally hurt from her husband’s murder. When they ask her questions during the question trails “They [treat] her kindly [of they don't hurt her emotions].” These tactics show that how clever’s Mary to artifice the detectives into believing that she’s not a murderer. Lastly, Mart is a very brave individual. When she first came to face the grocery store worker she was not afraid or in panic after murdering her husband, instead, she spoke in a confident voice saying “Perfect [and] Thank you [to the grocery store worker].” Also, Mary was a brave woman in front of the police by not confessing the truth in such a hard time of emotional
Mary Maloney loved a man who did not love her back we can say that Mr. Maloney mistreated her for a long time. That love turned into rage the moment she saw the opportunity to kill him. This is why she is guilty of second degree murder. This woman looked forward to her husband's homecoming everyday, she loved him. When she grabbed the leg if a lamb from the freezer, she didn’t think about finding a murder weapon, she was thinking of her husband's happiness. At the moment of the crime, she did it without a thought, and as the wife if a detective she knew she needed to cover it up. Mary Maloney realized that she had committed the perfect crime when her husband's friends were eating the murder weapon. What is horrible is that she found a wicked enjoyment at the end.
Mary commits cold blooded murder with a big, frozen, leg of lamb in the back of the head. This is a very dark side to her, especially when previously it stated she waited happily for her husband to come home. This shows how people can have a secret about them that you might never know. Mary is a prime example of this because she murdered her husband and future father of her child. This shows how people can reveal a dark side to them that you may have never knew
Several times in stories, one character’s perspective over another character’s perspective can impact the outcome of the story. It can be a limited or an overlooked perspective, but these are key points that help create major turning points. In this story “Lamb to the Slaughter” written by (put the author's name), the detectives had a limited perspective towards Mary Moloney’s character which helped her cover up the murder of Patrick Moloney, her husband. The limited perspective that the detectives had towards Mary Moloney were based upon a biased opinion, and the time period the story took place in which was in the early nineteen hundreds.
...e oven?” (Dahl 4) Mary was very manipulative and sinister because she knew exactly what she was doing; she wanted the officers to eat up all of the lamb so that there would be no evidence of the murder weapon that she used to kill. As the officers were eating up all of the lamb, Mary was very happy and giggling while she was listening to the officers eat up the lamb, she was never grieving about the loss of Patrick and just wanted to kill him and cover up the evidence so she will not be caught.
When the police arrived they try to understand and figure out how Patrick has been killed. But unluckily the officers can not notice Mrs. Maloney was the killer. At the end of the book Mary Maloney giggles when the officers said, “Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?” (Dahl 18). Throughout the beginning, Mary Maloney seemed like a nice caring wife but what Patrick said caused her to do a crime. At that point, Mary knew she got away she eliminated the evidence and managed to escape. Mary laughing shows readers that the killing of her husband was not important to her at all. Therefore the theme of this story is to not trust everybody.