In the story “Lamb to The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, Mary Maloney is patiently waiting for her beloved husband Patrick Maloney to return home from work.When he does return he tells Mary something horrible and she gets upset. While upset she then kills her husband with a leg of lamb. Because of how she killed her husband Patrick, Mary Maloney is guilty of Murder. Mary Maloney is guilty of murder because of her motives and how much she planned. Mary Maloney is guilty of murder because of her motives. In the story, Mary Maloney is patiently waiting for her husband patrick to arrive home. When he does get home he decides that he does not want to go to dinner and that he has something to tell her.When he does tell her mary gets very upset but decides to act like nothing is wrong. She then continues on about how she will make a leg of lamb for dinner instead of going and patrick says that she should not because he is going out. At that moment Mary Maloney got so heated that she hit him over the head with the leg of lamb from the freezer and killed him.In the text, Mary Maloney says to herself “ Alright. So I’ve killed him”. This shows that her motive was to kill him because when she said this it …show more content…
In the story right after Mary kills her husband, she then decides to go to the store to provide herself with an alibi. When she gets back she then calls the police and begins her cover up. The text says “ That’s the way,she told herself. Do everything right and natural. Keep things absolutely natural and there will be no need for any acting at all.” This proves my point of Mary Maloney being guilty of murder cause of the amount of planning because of how she is telling herself how to act and she is rehearsing how to act. This shows also shows that she planned beforehand her alibi because of how she is not thinking of what she is going to she is rehearsing which means she already thought about it
First, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Mary Malony. She killed her husband when he said he was going to leave her and her baby all alone. I guess she couldn’t bare the thought of him leaving her all alone like that so she just killed him with their dinner. “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up
Mary Maloney is accused of murdering her husband with an unknown weapon for an unknown reason. Chief detective, Patrick Maloney was murdered last night at his own house, no suspects have been identified yet and the search for the murder weapon was futile. Apparently, the officer had come home exhausted from work and was waiting for his wife Mrs. Mary Maloney, who left to buy food across the street for their dinner. According to a statement, Mary arrives home from the grocery store to find her husband dead on the living room floor.
Alternatively, in the lamb to the slaughter Mary turned out to be more devious and deceptive. She had known a little about criminal activity as she was a police officer’s wife, she had planned and plotted everything from creating an alibi to how she was going to act after the crime. Considering Mary’s unintentional act, I think she did not deserve to be punished for her actions
In Lamb to the Slaughter, Mary Maloney, doting housewife pregnant with her first child, commits a heinous crime against her husband. After he tells her that he is leaving, she become distraught and strikes him in the head with a leg of lamb. Afterwards, Mary...
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.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Today November 15, 2017, the case of senior police officer Patrick Maloney, who was found murdered in his home October 4, 2017, goes on. After weeks of myself, Alex Wargo, and the prosecuting team putting together evidence, justice will be brought for Patrick Maloney, and his wife, Mary Maloney, will be found guilty of his murder.
Mary played the role of a very caring wife at the beginning of the story, since she was always there for her husband and tried to do anything to serve and satisfy him. Firstly, as soon as her husband came home “She took his coat and hung it in the closet. Then she walked over and made the drinks”(Dahl 2). Later on when she notices that her husband seemed depressed, she asked him, “Would you like me to get you some cheese” (Dahl 2). When he says no, she replies “But you must eat! I’ll fix it anyway” (Dahl 2). This shows the care she had toward her husband at the beginning of the stroy and how her life used to revolve him. Furthermore, it shows how she used to do anything to please him. Therefore this proves how she knew her duties and responsibilities toward her husband really well. Although, in this story, Mary Maloney was not only a very a dutiful and caring wife, but during the story she transitioned into becoming an even more dutiful mother who was well aware of her responsibilities. After she killed her husband she thought of her child and wondered, “What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill the both- mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? What did they do? Mary Maloney didn’t know. And she certainly wasn’t prepared to take a chance” (Dahl 3). This shows how Mary Maloney had created this entire plan just to save her child and didn’t care what harm came to her. Therefore this definitely makes her a very caring mom, because it takes a lot of love to do such a thing. So this definitely makes her the perfect mother. In conclusion, Mary Maloney is strongly aware of her duties and responsibilities. Therefore, she was able to carry out the entire plan because people knew how much she loved her husband and so people trusted her. Also, she created this plan because
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
After she heard the news she convinces herself that he (Patrick) is still alive, she also speaks to herself/ practices her speaking to sound ‘normal’, and it shows how she felt about getting away with it. Mary Maloney was over tasked with the keeping of the house and being a doting wife to her husband, all she had going in her life was looking after her husband. Mary only wanted to be there for her husband, wanting to be with him no matter the problems they might have. Mary refused to see that her relationship was in rambles. To make her husband happy she took on as many tasks she could, along with keeping their marriage together as it was slowly falling apart. “Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked”. (Oliver Wendell Holmes,
An additional view point of the story could be from a woman. A female reading Lamb to the Slaughter would most likely side with Mary Maloney. Dahl starts the story describing Mary’s behavior before her husbands’ arrival. She sits ...
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 was pregnant… Her hormones were all over the place. Patrick Maloney was putting too much pressure on her. By asking for a divorce and treating her really bad. He knew that she was pregnant and still asked for a divorce and was having an affair. He was only going to send money to his kid. Patrick was abusive physically and emotionally.
Mrs. Hutchinson speaks out when Bill Hutchinson is chosen only because he is a family member. If he were not, she wouldn't have cared if he lived or died. When she, herself, is chosen, she gets upset about it and now it is suddenly not fair. "Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said" (Dahl 7). This is most likely how Mary Maloney in "Lamb to the Slaughter" would have reacted if she were caught with murder. She only laughed because she got away with her crime. "And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to laugh" (Jackson 4). She would have been just like Tessie Hutchinson saying "It's not fair" when they haul Mrs. Maloney off to
...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.