In "Lamb to the Slaughter," the actual statement is “Would you do me a small favor ... [and] eat up that lamb that’s in the oven," and the utterance, paraphrased or not, is a good example of verbal irony. This is because the police interpret the "favor" she asks for as simply helping her to get rid of a meal her husband can no longer eat because he is dead. They think she simply wants to be hospitable and not have her meal wasted. They have no idea that what Mary really means is that eating up the lamb is a favor to her because it gets rid of her murder weapon.

Dahl also shows Mary playing on the innocence she knows she projects as a young, pretty, very pregnant woman. The police know her as a friend, the wife of a fellow officer, and as a woman who seems domestic and gentle. Therefore, it never crosses their minds that she could have killed her husband.