Lamb To The Slaughter Mary Maloney

In a stressful situation, a crucial decision can lead to spontaneous life alternations and changes of opinions. In fact, Mary Maloney in Roald Dahl's Lamb To The Slaughter is a dynamic character who is first shown as a warm, loving, caring, housewife but turns into a devious, cold hearted, and a cunning person. She illustrates that feelings and emotions have a strong effect in situations. Mary Maloney is a typical 19th century housewife for many reasons. Mary lives on stability, routine, and is always trying to please her husband Patrick by being the best housewife she could be. She loves his company right when he comes home from work, she "was content to sit quietly enjoying his company’ (Dahl pg. 11). Mary waits for her husband to

However, she illustrates that feelings and emotions have a strong effect in situations. Emotions will drive the decisions one makes and one will respond by the feelings going though their body, what many people refer to as a "gut feeling". In this short story, Mary Maloney's gut feeling was to swing a leg of lamb at Patrick, but later on she feels remorse for her actions. When she killed Patrick, after she came back from the grocers, she pretended to find Patrick dead on the floor. She had to act like he was not laying there when she had left, therefore she had acted if she was surprised, terrified, and sad which she did not have to do, "it was easy. No acting was necessary" (Dahl pg. 13). In the middle of the story, Mary has lost her mind. Her emotions of betrayal, revenge, sadness have triggered her to be unemotional. As the police officers are at hard work to find the killer, she laughs at them. Her laughter at the end shows her mental incapability of dealing with what she has done .While the officers are discussing about their case, “in the other room, Mary Maloney begins to giggle “(Dahl pg.18). Mary acts aggressively and impulsively which confirms that she is not emotionally