The keenest murder cover-up you will ever hear about....
"Lamb to the Slaughter" cannot be simply described as a murder
mystery, because the omniscient narrator is not the only person who know what
is going on - our leading lady knows the truth as well. I must say that I
certainly agree with some statements about the story containing dark humor. I
could not help but laugh when Mary Maloney said, "'All right,' she told herself. 'So
I’ve killed him.'" In addition, the ending also made me chuckle a bit,
because the investigators themselves had just eaten the very evidence there
were searching for the whole time. I feel that this was actually a short story
that I could appreciate for it combined seriousness, humor, and the cunning of
one very...interesting woman. Also, looking in the time period Roald Dahl lived
in, this story puts a woman into a new light, one where she is much more than a
housewife.
Although foreshadowing was a small element at work,
mainly because the title implied the story having some connection a lamb, the
main element at work was definitely characterization. Although it may seem
subtle, Mary Maloney truly is a dynamic character, mainly because of a split
second event. Just as her husband was telling her that he was leaving her, she
went through a dramatic change. She was no longer a housewife - now she was a
severely annoyed and angry woman who, without even knowing what she was doing,
killed her husband. Constantly, the third person omniscient narrator was
informing you on her thoughts and actions, down to the little details of
practicing what she would say to the grocer.
I think it is a given that my favorite character in the story was Mary
Maloney, being that she was the only one I truly was able to comprehend
entirely. She was cunning, and although she did have that minute breakdown in
the middle of the story, she was able to pull herself together in time to
conjure a way to save not only herself and her pride, but to save her unborn
child.
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