Roald Dahl - Official site
SUMMARY OF THE STORY
This story is about Mary Maloney and her husband Patrick who was a detective. It seems that she loved her husband dearly. But shockingly she killed him when he told her that he was going to leave her. As she had lived with a detective husband, she knew the ways to prove herself innocent from the charge of murdering him. She went to a grocery to buy some edibles and behaved as if nothing had happened. She told the grocer, Mr. Sam that she was buying those edibles for her husband. After coming home, she rang up the police and the detectives and informed them about the murder of her husband, Patrick. Investigations went on, but in vain. Nobody could raise a finger of suspicion on Mary Maloney as there was no evidence against her. Thus, a murderer moves freely in the society.
POSITIVE POINTS OF THE STORY
I liked the story very much. It reflects the changes and colours of human nature. It is quite unpredictable. Human feelings such as love, faith, affection and loyalty can be blown away with any fit of a cruel wind. They are not deep rooted in human nature and can be uprooted to enact a crime. We lie to ourselves when we say that we love someone from the core of our heart. Heart is only a biological organ and has nothing to do with our feelings. It is a bitter truth that we love ourselves the most. Our feelings change with circumstances. We love others as long as we receive reciprocation from the other side. Otherwise everything is finished. As in the story Mary who loved a lot her husband and always thought and waited for him with anxiety, wasted no time to kill him cruelly. Even after committing the dreadful crime, she had no regrets and worked out a plan to set herself free from any charges.
NEGATIVE POINTS OF THE STORY
Every coin has two sides. Same here with the story also though the plot of the story is strong. It sometimes loses the grip on the reader. The writer elaborates Mary Maloney’s love and anxiety for her husband, Patrick a lot. But when Patrick told Mary that he was going to leave her forever, the writer had failed to show the struggle of thoughts in Mary’s mind. Instead of giving any resistance or reaction, she went in the kitchen to prepare the supper. It is also not very clear whether Patrick also loved Mary as deeply as she did. Apart from this, the writer did not mention clearly why Patrick wanted to leave Mary even when she was pregnant.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, it is a soul touching story reflecting the variations in human nature. It is awful that man is more dangerous than animals. He only loves himself and if his wishes and feelings are not reciprocated he can commit a crime and with no repentance.
By RACHNA RAJARAMAN (India)
Lamb to the Slaughter : a summary by Yvanna, Marina and Maëva (France)
Mary Maloney, a devoted woman to her husband was looking forward to seeing him again. As usual, she had prepared everything he could need at home when he would come back from work. But, when he came back that day, he looked preoccupied. She kept on taking so much care of him as she was used to, but it seemed like he had something to tell her, something she would never forget.
When he was done telling her whet he had to tell her, she felt like the whole world had fallen apart but she could barely pretend that everything was alright.
In a different state of mind, she hit him until he couldn’t breathe anymore.
What would come next? She was already planning it.
She would cook the meat and walk to the grocery shop. She would tell the man about the dinner she was about to prepare for Patrick. And when she would come home, she would pretend she was expecting her husband to be still alive and burst into tears when she would find him lying on the floor. That was what she would do, that would be her alibi. And that was exactly what she did, in a right and natural way.
When the policemen arrived, they couldn’t find who the murderer was.
“Get the weapon, and you’ve got the man,” they said, while they were blindly eating the lamb. And Mary Maloney felt she was somehow out of danger.
The characters in Lamb to the Slaughter by Riche and Naïma (France)
Mrs Maloney is a pregnant housewife who is married to Patrick and who loves him. She thinks she knows everything about him( his schedule, tastes,…).
She looks harmless and meek …as a lamb at first but she is so desperate on hearing that Patrick is going to leave her that she kills him.
We also discover another aspect of her personality when she regains her self control. She manages to manipulate the grocer and the policemen who are led to believe that she is innocent.
Patrick Maloney: we don’t know much about him except that he is Mary’s husband and we can imagine that they share a boring routine. He is a policeman.He wants to tell Mary something and we quickly understand that he has been unfaithful and wants to get a divorce.
The policemen: They do their best to console her. They are also the fools of the story because they are made to eat the crime weapon without suspecting anything!
