Lamb to the Slaughter Written by Ronald Dahl

In Lamb to the Slaughter written by Ronald Dahl, the main character Mary Maloney was a good wife who kept the house up and loved her husband a lot. She was married to Patrick Maloney. One evening she was very excited about her husband coming home but unfortunately when he came home he had bad news for Mary. He told her he was leaving her. Mary went into shock and killed her husband. After killing her husband she went to the store like nothing happen. She put food on at home and fell to the floor by her husband then started crying while calling the police. The police came to the house to investigate, they turned up nothing. To my surprise the story ends with Mary having food and whiskey with the police. Mary and Patrick are both an innocent Lambs, victims of unknown circumstances.

They are considered to be "lambs". Mary is a lamb because she could have a mental problem or she might have not wont to kill him on purpose. The police also could be the lamb because they really trusted Mary and didn't think she would kill her husband and her story was turning out to be true. The husband could also be the lamb because he didn't want to hurt her but she took it the wrong way and she killed him for it.

Mary is the lamb because she was 6 months pregnant and loved Patrick until he told her. Mary was heartbroken when she found this out and killed Patrick and acted like nothing happen.

Patrick became the victim when he told Mary he was leaving her. Patrick was a good husband up until he got tired and said he was leaving her when she was 6 months pregnant.

Not only did the story have "lambs", but it also had a lot of irony. Irony is how things are different from what they seem. An example of irony in this story is how Mary had just done a crazy thing when she killed her husband and then went to the store to buy peas and potatoes for dinner and chatted with the clerk like nothing happen. Another example of irony is how the police came to investigate and look for evidence not knowing they were eating it. Lastly irony is shown in the fact that an "innocent" lamb was slaughtered and used as a weapon to kill and then eaten.

The ending of the story was not satisfying because it left me in suspense. It did not tell me if she got arrested or not. Also, the story didn't answer a lot of questions. For instance, why was Patrick leaving his wife? And once Mary was out of shock did she regret what she had done?

In conclusion, I enjoyed reading lamb to the slaughter. Its use of irony made the story more interesting. If I could change one thing it would be to finish out the story.