Lamb to the slaughter

Introduction

Roald Dahl was born in Wales to Norwegian parents. His father died the year he was born, and his mother remained in Great Britain. He attended the prestigious Repton public preparatory school, where he was a quiet, bookish student, but never went on to college. After graduation, Dahl went to work for the Dutch Shell Oil company, and was posted overseas in Africa. At the outbreak of World War I in 1939, he joined the Royal Air Force and became a fighter pilot. Shot down during a sortie over Greece, Dahl was injured and spent the rest of the war in Washington DC, as a spy. Among his colleagues in the United States at the time was another future writer, the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming.

In class we read, "Lamb to the slaughter", written by Roal Dahl. The story takes place one evening in the home of the Maloneys, who seem to be an ordinary married couple. Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband Patrick, a policeman, to come home. Mary is pregnant and happy and looking forward to his return. However, Patrick has a nasty surprise for her. He says that he is going to leave her. Mary enters a state of shock and acts as if nothing has happened. From the deep freeze she gets a leg of frozen lamb for dinner. When her husband repeats that he's going out, Mary hits him over the head with the lamb and kills him. Next she creates an alibi by going to the grocers, then calls the police who search for the murder weapon. Meanwhile Mary persuades them to eat the leg of lamb, which she'd put in the oven, so they have destroyed the evidence.

Discussion

Initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, "Lamb to the Slaughter" eventually appeared in Collier's in 1953, after Knopf published its first collection of Dahl's short stories and established his American reputation. Dahl had been making headway as a professional writer with a spate of tales which, like "Lamb to the Slaughter," reflect aspects of human perversity, cruelty, and violence. "Lamb to the Slaughter" opens with Mary Maloney, the pregnant, doting wife of a policeman waiting for her husband to come home from work.

"Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl was a very enjoyable and witty short story. The story revolves around Mary Maloney, the loving wife of respected policeman Patrick Maloney. Life is bliss for the couple until one day when Patrick announces that he is leaving Mary. Mary kills Patrick and does her best to cover up her crime. Roald Dahl uses tension, surprising contrasts and twists to create an engaging short story.

Tension is an integral technique used by Dahl in "Lamb to the Slaughter" that helps to create a more interesting short story. Tension adds the idea of macabre and allows the story to develop at a steady pace.(Slaughter,12)

To create tension, Dahl describes some areas in great detail and in contrast he describes some ...