lamb to the slaughter 5 paragraph essay

A Summary and Analysis of Roald Dahl’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is a 1953 short story by Roald Dahl (1916-90), which was initially rejected for publication but was later adapted for television on several occasions. Included in Dahl’s collections Someone Like You (1953) and Tales of the Unexpected (1979), the story is about a wife who murders her unfaithful husband with a frozen leg of lamb before hatching a plan to ensure she isn’t caught for her crime.

Before we offer an analysis of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, it might be worth recapping the plot of Dahl’s story.

Plot summary

Mary Maloney is waiting at home for her husband, Patrick, to get home from work. He is a detective. She is six months pregnant with their child. When he gets home, she pours them both a drink and notices that Patrick has drained his glass more swiftly than he usually does. He pours himself another whisky before revealing to his wife that he plans to leave her.

Mary is stunned by this revelation, and initially wants to act as though it hasn’t happened. She decides to go and get some food from the freezer that she can cook for their dinner. She finds a leg of lamb in the freezer, and when her husband announces he’s going out, she strikes him on the back of the head with the lamb leg, killing him.

Immediately she starts to think about how to cover her tracks so she won’t be caught. She puts the meat in the oven to cook. After rehearsing what she will say to the nearby grocer, she goes out to his shop and buys some potatoes and peas to go with the roast lamb. When talking to the grocer, Sam, she acts as though everything is all right and her husband is waiting for her back home.

When she returns home, she talks herself into believing her husband is still alive, so she is genuinely shocked when she sees his body lying on the floor. She phones the police to report that he has been murdered, and a group of detectives – who knew Patrick from work – show up to investigate his death.

The detectives make a thorough search of the house, believing that Patrick was murdered by a heavy metal implement. So they search for something that could have been used as the murder weapon. They remain in the house for so long that Mary offers them all a drink. They reluctantly accept and, when she is reminded of the lamb cooking in the oven, she suggests that they eat it since they must be hungry.

Again, they agree, and as they sit around the table eating the leg of lamb which killed their former colleague, they remain oblivious to the fact that they are, in fact, destroying the evidence themselves. In the next room, Mary giggles.

Dahl’s story was suggested by his friend Ian Fleming, who created James Bond. Dahl adapted Fleming’s Bond novel You Only Live Twice for the big screen; he also co-wrote the screenplay for the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang , which was also based on a Fleming novel. And it was Fleming who suggested the idea for ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, telling his friend that he should write a story about a woman who murders her wife with a leg of mutton (not lamb) which she then serves to the investigating officers.

‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ can be categorised as a horror story (although given the lack of any supernatural element, ‘thriller’ is perhaps a more apposite label), although we should also pay attention to the darkly humorous elements of the tale: features in keeping with Dahl’s writing as a whole.

The story reflects – but then subverts – a common trope of the early 1950s: namely, the wife as the faithful homemaker while the husband goes out to work. At the beginning of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, Mary Maloney cannot do enough for her husband, waiting patiently and eagerly for him to arrive home, fetching his drink, asking him about his day.

But when the stability of her world crumbles in a few minutes, when Patrick tells her that he is leaving her (although it isn’t mentioned, we assume he has met someone else), she changes very quickly – and easily – from dutiful wife to cold-blooded murderer.

In other words, once the role she has settled into over the years, that of being ‘Mrs Patrick Maloney’, is taken away from her, she finds herself able to switch in and out of that role with ease. After a brief rehearsal at home, she is able to convince the grocer that she is still the dutiful wife once again: an act she performs again for the policemen.

Dahl makes it clear that she doesn’t murder her husband out of fear of being penniless without the money from him, the breadwinner of the family: he makes it clear he will continue to provide for her financially. Instead, her motive is more complex. Does she kill him out of jealousy or spite, or resentment at having conceived the child of a man who doesn’t even intend to hang around long enough to see it born?

Dahl leaves these questions open for us to discuss. Note how, in the moments preceding that decisive moment when she strikes her husband with the leg of lamb, her movements become automatic, as if she is being guided by some other force. Her unconscious? The concentrated righteous anger of ‘a woman scorned’? Dahl tells us that she ‘simply’ walked up to her husband and struck him with the lamb.

It is as if she is performing some perfunctory task, almost as though the mundane and automatic business of housework has been extrapolated to incorporate the business of murder. She doesn’t appear to lash out in a moment of fury, cold or otherwise. It is almost as if she feels she has no other choice.

There is obviously a grim irony in the method she uses to dispatch her husband. The roast joint cooking in the oven is the symbol par excellence of the good 1950s housewife, feeding her husband after a long day at work. There is also symbolism in the fact that this food, meant to be an offering from wife to husband, is used instead to kill the husband, with the deadly weapon being given instead to a host of other men (who, as policemen, are also stand-ins for the dead husband in some respects).

In the last analysis, then, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is a short story about how easily the meek and loving housewife can transform into a cold and calculating killer. It is Mary’s sudden change that makes the story so unsettling, and the lack of remorse she shows for her crime; but her choice of murder weapon and method of disposing of the evidence make this story as much black comedy as out-and-out horror tale.

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Lamb To The Slaughter

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Summary and Study Guide

Summary: “lamb to the slaughter”.

First published in Harper’s Magazine in 1953, “Lamb to the Slaughter” is Roald Dahl’s best-known short story for adults. Dahl (1916 - 1990) was a British novelist, screenwriter, short story author and, arguably, one of the greatest children’s storytellers of the 20th century. Many of his popular children’s books have been adapted for stage and screen, including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory , Matilda , The Witches , James and the Giant Peach , and Fantastic Mr. Fox .

Dahl published four collections of adult stories between 1946 and 1974. His short fiction was often characterized by black humor and macabre plot twists. “Lamb to the Slaughter” was adapted into a television script that Alfred Hitchcock presented in 1958. Many of the author’s other short stories were adapted for the British television series “Tales of the Unexpected,” which aired from 1979 to 1988. Dahl received the 1983 World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement and the British Book Awards’ Children’s Author of the Year in 1990. He was also presented with three Edgar Awards for his short fiction.

This study guide refers to the 2017 Penguin edition of Skin & Other Stories by Roald Dahl.

Content Warning: The source material contains depictions of domestic violence.

The story opens on a Thursday evening as Mary Maloney awaits her husband’s return from work. The living room is warm, tidy, and invitingly lit. Mary, who is six months pregnant, occasionally checks the clock as she sits sewing.

At 4:50 p.m., Mary is pleased to hear Patrick Maloney’s car pulling into the drive. She greets her husband at the door, kissing him and calling him “darling” (22). He responds with a brief “Hullo” (23). After hanging up his coat, Mary pours two whiskey and sodas. Giving the stronger drink to her husband, she sits opposite him.

Mary loves this time of day. She knows her husband likes to savor his first drink in silence, and she sits contentedly, happy to be in his presence. However, she is surprised when he quickly gulps down his drink and gets up to pour another. She offers to help him, but he orders her to stay seated. Mary notices that his second whiskey and soda is stronger. He declines her offer to fetch his slippers.

The Maloneys usually go out to eat on a Thursday. Nevertheless, Mary tells her husband she will prepare supper if he is tired. He curtly refuses the offer. Mary moves toward the freezer, and Mr. Maloney again instructs her to “[s]it down” (25). She listens as her husband makes a brief but shocking announcement (the narration does not recount his exact words but implies that he intends to leave his wife). Afterward, Mary stares at him “with a kind of dazed horror” (25). Mr. Maloney admits that the timing of his decision is not ideal but assures Mary that he will provide for her financially. He says he wants to avoid “any fuss” that might adversely affect his career as a police detective (25).

In shock, Mary behaves as if nothing has happened and declares she will make supper. She goes down to the cellar and takes a leg of lamb out of the freezer. When she returns to the living room, Mr. Maloney’s back is turned, and he abruptly announces he is “going out” (26). Without stopping to think, Mary clubs him over the head with the frozen leg of lamb. Mr. Maloney totters for a moment before toppling to the floor.

Coming to her senses, Mary realizes her husband is dead. She knows the penalty for murder is the death sentence. However, she is unsure if her unborn child would be spared this punishment. Although Mary feels that death “would be a relief” for her (27), she is not prepared for her baby to suffer this fate. Thinking quickly, she places the lamb in the oven and tidies her appearance. She smiles at the mirror and practices asking for potatoes and a can of peas in a cheerful voice .

Mary walks to her local grocery store, arriving just before six o’clock. She cheerfully greets the grocer, Sam . Mary explains that she needs peas and potatoes to accompany the lamb she is cooking, as her husband is too tired to eat out. She agrees when Sam suggests that Mr. Maloney might also like some cheesecake.

Hurrying home, Mary reflects that her behavior must appear as natural as possible. She convinces herself that it is an ordinary evening and she is about to cook her husband’s supper. Going inside, Mary is genuinely shocked at the sight of Mr. Maloney’s dead body and bursts into tears. She calls the police station where her husband worked to report that Patrick Maloney is dead.

When two policemen arrive at the scene, Mary is still crying. She recognizes the men as her husband’s colleagues, Sergeant Jack Noonan and O’Malley. Collapsing into Noonan’s arms, Mary tearfully explains that she discovered her husband’s body after going to the grocery store for vegetables. More men arrive at the crime scene, including a doctor, two detectives, and a photographer. All of them are kind to Mary. One of the detectives visits the grocery store to check Mary’s alibi. He returns, satisfied with Sam’s claim that Mary behaved normally.

Mr. Maloney’s body is taken away, leaving Mary with the two detectives and policemen. Sergeant Noonan asks if she wants to stay with a female relative, but Mary declines. She stays in the house as the police search for the murder weapon. The police officers tell her that they are looking for a heavy instrument, most likely made of metal. Mary suggests they search the garage.

By nine o’clock, the police have failed to find anything significant. Mary asks Sergeant Noonan to pour her a whiskey and suggests he has one too. Noonan admits that he is not supposed to drink alcohol while working but nevertheless acquiesces. The other police officers come in from outside and also accept Mary’s offer of alcohol.

When Noonan notices that the oven is still on, Mary asks if Jack and the other three policemen will do her “a small favour” (33). She insists that, as they are trying to catch Mr. Maloney’s killer, her husband would have wanted them to eat the lamb, which is now perfectly cooked. The policemen are persuaded, and Mary listens to them eat while she remains in the living room. Discussing the murder weapon, the men speculate that the man who killed Patrick Maloney must have used a weapon like “a sledgehammer” (33). The policemen agree that the murder weapon is most likely “right under [their] very noses” (34). In the living room, Mary laughs to herself.