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
I enjoyed Roald Dahl’s story “Lamb to the slaughter” and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Dahl as well as anyone who likes a story with irony.
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. Dahl now represents her as a cold blooded murderer who seeks to cover her tracks. Mary not only goes on with her life but she also goes to see Sam in a bid to give herself an alibi for her husband’s death.
Mary attempts to think the judicial system through in her mind, should she be caught. She wonders what the law is regarding murderers with unborn children and at times in the story I thought she may well have been found out when the detectives arrived to interview her. Personally the best part for
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