Nov 15, 2009

Lamb to the Slaughter | Introduction

Initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, ‘‘Lamb to the Slaughter’’ eventually appeared in Collier’s in 1953, after Knopf published its first collection of Dahl’s short stories and established his American reputation. Dahl had been making headway as a professional writer with a spate of tales which, like ‘‘Lamb to the Slaughter,’’ reflect aspects of human perversity, cruelty, and violence. ‘‘Lamb to the Slaughter’’ opens with Mary Maloney, the pregnant, doting wife of a policeman waiting for her husband to come home from work. When he does so, he makes an abrupt but unspecified statement to Mary, the upshot of which is that he intends to leave her. Her connubial complacency shattered by this revelation, Mary crushes her husband’s skull with a frozen leg of lamb and then arranges an alibi. The laconic suddenness of the events, as Dahl tells them, creates an experience of shock for the reader, an effect which no doubt accounts for the popularity of this frequently anthologized and reprinted story. Dahl, who is also the author of popular childrens’ fiction, appears here as an adult student of adult evil, as a cynically detached narrator, and as an advocate of a grisly form of black comedy. Yet ‘‘Lamb to the Slaughter’’ prefigures the grotesqueness in even his work for children: in both James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ‘‘bad’’ children meet with bizarre and horrific but appropriate fates.

Lamb to the Slaughter Summary

Dahl commences with a picture of static coziness in a middle-class, domestic setting. Mary Maloney, six months pregnant, waits for her policeman husband Patrick Maloney to come home from work. The scene emphasizes domesticity: ‘‘The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn.’’ Matching chairs, lamps, glasses, and whisky, soda, and ice cubes await.Mary watches the clock, smiling quietly to herself as each minute brings her husband closer to home. When he arrives, she takes his coat and hangs it in the closet. The couple sits and drinks in silence—Mary comfortable with the knowledge that Patrick does not like to talk much until after the first drink. So by deliberate design, everything seems normal until Mary notices that Patrick drains most of his drink in a single swallow, and then pours himself another, very strong drink. Mary offers to fix dinner and serve it to him so that he does not have to leave his chair, although they usually dine out on Thursdays. She also offers to prepare a snack. Patrick declines all her offers of food. The reader becomes aware of a tension which escapes Mary’s full notice.

Patrick confronts Mary and makes a speech, only the upshot of which is given explicitly: ‘‘So there it is. . . . And I know it’s a kind of bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn’t any other way. Of course, I’ll give you money and see you’re looked after. But there needn’t really be any fuss.’’ For reasons which Dahl does not make explicit, Patrick has decided to leave his pregnant wife.

Mary goes into shock. At first she wonders if she imagined the whole thing. She moves automatically to retrieve something from the basement freezer and prepare supper.... » Complete Lamb to the Slaughter Summary