After reading the short story "Lamb to the slaughter" by Roald Dahl, I have been asked to answer the question, "what is Roald Dahl's view of women presented in the short story "Lamb to the slaughter"?.
The plot of this story is pretty simple. There is a nice young woman called Mary Maloney. Mary is represented as a quiet, timid young woman who is expecting a baby. She lives with her husband Patrick, who is a police detective.
One day, Patrick comes home from work in a very strange mood and tells Mary something awful. Mary reacts with anger and in a blind rage directed at this news she kills Patrick with a leg of lamb. Mary then manages to conceal her crime from Patrick's work colleges who are investigating his death. Ironically, the officers, feeling pity for Mary's loss eat the evidence. The leg of lamb was eaten and so they have no murder weapon.
In the beginning of the story, Dahl represents Mary as a content housewife, loving wife and soon to be mother. Dahl represents her relationship with her husband as a loving devoted one with images of Mary's life revolving around this relationship, ".Merely to please herself with the thought of each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come home", this suggests that Mary is longing for her husband to come home and for his company. Dahl emphasises Mary's devotion to her husband by writing about the two drinks that were laid out waiting for them to enjoy together. Mary keeps watch of the clock in anticipation of her husband's arrival. This anticipation is heightened at the same time "when the clock said ten minutes to five she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the tyres on the gravel outside and the car door slamming-.
Patrick is represented as a happy, content man who changes when some incident occurs. This incident is the precursor to Mary killing her husband. After the murder my view of Mary changed.
