illustrated tablesetting with a plate containing a large lamb-leg roast resting on a puddle of blood

Lamb to the Slaughter

by Roald Dahl

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Exploring the Theme, Main Idea, and Purpose of Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter"

Summary:

The theme of Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" revolves around betrayal and revenge. The main idea is the unexpected and ironic reaction of a wife to her husband's betrayal, leading to his murder. The purpose is to entertain while also highlighting the dark humor and unexpected twists in human behavior.

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What is the theme of "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

Lamb to the Slaughter” has several themes, but perhaps the most prominent and compelling is jealousy or, more precisely, the speed and intensity with which love can turn to hatred. Mary Maloney idolizes her husband. When he comes home, she waits on him devotedly and feels a sense of bliss merely because he is close to her:

She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel-almost as a sunbather feels the sun-that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together.

When he tells her that he has decided to leave, however, Mary first experiences a sudden numbness. She feels nothing at all except a slight nausea. Then, equally suddenly, she walks up behind him and smashes a frozen leg of lamb as hard as she can against the back of his head. Her feelings as she does this are not described, and she does not seem to think about it until after she has done it. It is an automatic animal reaction of fury and jealousy at the knowledge that she is about to lose her husband to another woman.

After the murder, Mary becomes cool and logical. All the sentimentality has drained out of her. Love died with her husband’s betrayal, but jealousy, at least, has been satisfied.

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What is the theme of "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

"Lamb to the Slaughter" is just a humorous perfect-crime story with an unusual twist. Mary Maloney has to have a strong motive for killing her husband, but the best part of the story is how she kills him and how she gets away with it. Mary has to be known as a loving, devoted wife because this shields her from suspicion as the perpetrator. How could such a quiet, patient, domestic woman kill her husband? The investigating cops don't spend any time checking up on her—but they wouldn't have found anything incriminating if they had. The story might be compared (in some respects) to another famous perfect-crime story, "The Cask of Amontillado." Montresor takes such pains to make everybody think that he and Fortunato are very good friends that he can't help referring to him repeatedly as "my friend," "my good friend," "my poor friend," etc., while he is leading him to his death. When the investigation of Fortunato's disappearance gets underway, no one will consider Montresor a possible suspect because he was such a good friend of the missing man. The same applies to Mary Maloney. Spouses are always prime suspects in murder cases—but how could anyone imagine that Mary Maloney would kill the husband she adored?

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What is the theme of "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

One main theme in this story is betrayal.  You have a housewife who is betrayed by her husband, who says that he is leaving her.  She thinks that everything is okay; she is pregnant, glowing, happy.  She makes meals for him, and doesn't have any reason to suspect that he is unhappy.  Then, he drops the bomb that he is leaving and to try no to make "any fuss...it wouldn't be very good for my job."  This is an awful betrayal for her.  Ironically, she betrays his friends later, through her covering up of the crime.

There is also a theme of identity, of us not really knowing ourselves very well.  I bet if Mary had asked herself that day "Am I capable of murdering my husband in cold blood, even if he did something awful to me?" the answer would have been a definite no.  But, in the moment, she behaves much differently.  And then, even more surprising is her cool cover-up, her quick thinking, and how she got away with the crime.  Such duplicity was probably as much of a shock to herself as to anyone else.  So don't think you know yourself for sure, until you've been in the situation.

There are other possible themes to this story; I've provided a link below to a more thorough discussion of themes.

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What is the main idea of "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl?

The main idea in the story is informed by irony. The story suggests that what we see is not what we get and that we are easily mislead by our perceptions of what is supposedly good and wholesome. That is the deception. Roald Dahl plays on our preconceived notions by informing us through Mary, her husband and the other characters, how fragile such beliefs can be. We are shocked and surprised by the unfolding events and Mary's reaction at the end of the story. Furthermore, our own values are tested. Did Patrick Maloney get his just desserts? Has justice been served or is Mary Maloney nothing more than a common criminal - a sly and ruthless murderer?

Whatever we decide - the message is clear: Good can be bad and bad can be good. Mary Maloney is presented as a loving, docile, caring wife who would do everything in the world to please her husband. She tends to his every whim and slavishly serves him. Her physical description equates her to a lamb - harmless and obedient, loyal to its master/sheperd. She does, however, display her darkest side when she (almost unconsciously) lashes out and kills her husband. She expresses no grief and calmly goes about the business of creating a perfect alibi.

The ending suggests a lack of remorse. Mary's giggling informs us that she takes an almost psychotic pleasure in having successfully allowed the policemen to obliterate the evidence. She was innately bad all along and her husband's rejection triggered her evil. Mary presented a false image of goodness. Mary did a bad thing, but her actions suggest that, for her, it was good.

Furthermore, Patrick Maloney is a detective and an officer of the law and one tends to believe that such individuals are, or should be, exemplary in terms of their conduct. He, however, seems to have been involved in an illicit affair and chooses to leave a loving, doting partner to further indulge his immorality. Once again, we are surprised that such a one, a protector, is willing to abandon his vulnerable and pregnant wife. He is not regretful and remorselessly, clinically, spells out his plans to his ever-attentive spouse.

It is also surprising how gullible and naive the investigating officers are, and they are responsible for our security and the protection of our rights. They are fixated on finding proof and are easily deceived by the sly Mary and, just as we are generally mislead by those who present a good image, are they caught up in this naive assumption that she could not be responsible for such a terrible deed. They go through the motions and do what is expected and we can be confident that that would probably be the end of it all. The post-mortem investigation would indicate that officer Maloney was the victim of blunt force trauma but how and why would the good Mrs Maloney ever commit such a heinous crime? It had to be someone else.

In the final analysis then, the appearance is not always the reality. 

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What is the main idea of "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl?

The main idea of "Lamb to the Slaughter" is one of murder and deception. Although the marital problems and difficulties play a huge part in the main event, the actual main event/idea is the murder and subsequent deception that take place in its aftermath.

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What is the main idea of "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl?

The story is a brief portrait of domestic violence and betrayal. I'm not sure if there is one main idea beyond writing an entertaining story with a bit of a twist ending, but one might say that the central theme is betrayal. First the husband betrays the wife by announcing his plan to leave, then the wife betrays his basic human trust by murdering him. Other themes are identity, especially shown in the way the wife has internalized the identity of a 'normal', middle class wife.

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What is the main message of "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

Because the character development is so wonderfully complex in "Lamb to the Slaughter," there are several messages which readers can take away from this story. The message that seems most significant to an individual reader will depend on the background and personal experiences that they bring to the reading experience. The following are a couple of messages that are central to the conflict.

Never underestimate the power of a determined woman. Mary Maloney doesn't present initially as a woman capable of murder. She is a doting wife who anxiously looks forward to her husband's return home and lovingly takes care of the details of his life, from hanging his coat to knowing exactly how to make his drink. She is presented as a meek character, but she quickly finds strength when Patrick callously dismisses her. After killing him, she immediately launches into a plan to develop an alibi, and she orchestrates the details of this plan with ease, seamlessly engaging in conversations so that people can attest to her absence from home during the time of Patrick's "mysterious" murder there. In order to cover her crime, she feeds the leg of lamb to the detectives, who are men her husband knows well. Mary is fueled by the sudden need to protect her unborn child, and this gives her the resolve she needs to accomplish a seemingly impossible task.

Sometimes the lines between good and bad are blurred. Mary Maloney is a murderess, after all, and she evades the efforts of the police to determine who has killed her husband. She giggles in the final scene, knowing that she's gotten away with murder and finding humor in their comments. Yet it's hard not to root for Mary after Patrick has seemingly told her that he plans to leave her and instructs her not to make a "fuss" about things because he doesn't want her reaction to negatively impact his job. Even as Mary insists on cooking his dinner, he dismisses her and notes that he is going "out," presumably to meet his mistress. While we can condemn Mary's actions, it's also hard not to place ultimate blame on Patrick, who is not a good husband and who is planning to abandon his unborn child. He's no saint, and it's hard to classify him as a good man. Did he deserve death? No—but there is a bit of satisfaction in the karma which solves Mary's conflict.

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What was the murder motive in "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

Mary Maloney kills her husband in a sudden burst of rage because he has told her he is going to leave her at a time when she is six months pregnant with their first child. She is a very loving, devoted, domestic wife and is understandably outraged at his betrayal. Her husband does not tell her that he is involved with another woman, but there seems to be a good possibility that such is the case, which would add jealousy to her motivation. She is an example of the old saying, "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." This became a popular folk saying, but it was used originally by William Congreve (1670-1729) in his play The Mourning Bride:

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

One of the most interesting things about Roald Dahl's story is seeing the mild-mannered, demure housewife suddenly and spontaneous turn into a murderess and then go on to save herself from punishment by concocting an alibi and destroying the murder weapon in an ingenious way.

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What is the main idea of "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

The phrase "A lamb to the slaughter" refers to lambs who are slaughtered for their meat. The also used to be slaughtered so their skins could be made into particularly good gloves.

The lamb is young, ignorant, and weak.  If he is treated well he will not fear people; if he feels threatened he will likely freeze -- lie down and hold still so as to escape detection.  So it is very easy to slaughter a lamb.  A lamb has no weapons, so he can't possibly hurt you.

Mary Maloney starts off as a lamb: she is in a warm, comfortable, loving environment; all her needs are met; and she is secure and content.

Then her husband threatens to destroy her ideal world.  Suddenly the situation is turned upside down: the former lamb becomes a very efficient predator.  To preserve her pleasant life she kills her husband, without malice, anger, or even regret -- and, by the author's sense of humor, with a frozen leg of lamb. She very efficiently conceals her tracks, again not allowing emotion to interfere with her actions.  Again by the author's humor she causes the police to eat the murder weapon; of course the last thing they say in the story is that the muder weapon is probably right under their noses, and they are quite correct.

I think the main idea is that even a lamb like Mrs. Maloney can turn deadly when threatened.  Note that the Mrs. Maloney at the start of the story is very different from the lady at the end.  She is now capable of most anything, and it's hard to predict how her life will go in the future.

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What is the main idea of "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

In my opinion, the main idea in this story is that people have depths to them that are not always apparent.  We never know what a person will be like (or what we will be like) until we are put to the test.

I think we can see this very clearly in the character of Mary.  At the start of the story, she is a complete pushover.  She seems to be so docile and inert.  She lives only to do things for her husband, it seems.

But then look what happens once she is put to the test.  When that happens, she turns into someone completely new.  She beccomes aggressive and even (if you look at her in a bad light) scheming.

This shows us that people who are forced into tough situations can respond in unexpected ways.

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What are the themes of the short story "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

"Lamb to the Slaughter" is essentially a perfect-crime murder story told with a touch of humor. There are two major kinds of perfect-crime murder stories: those in which the the murderer thinks he has planned the perfect crime but gets caught because of something he overlooked, and those in which the murderer actually gets away with it. Edgar Allan Poe may have invented both of these genres. Examples of the former are "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat." Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado" is an example of a crime in which the perpetrator gets away with it completely.

Mary Maloney commits the perfect crime, but she doesn't plan it ahead of time. She acts spontaneously, using the weapon which happens to be in her hand, a frozen leg of lamb. It is significant that she is a cop's wife, because she has learned a lot about police work from listening to her husband and his friends. She sets up an alibi by going to the grocers and letting it appear that her husband was killed by an intruder in her absence. Before leaving the house she turns the oven up as high as it will go and puts the frozen leg of lamb inside.The reader might wonder how long it will take to cook the lamb, so Dahl answers this question by having Mary discuss it with Sam the grocer.

"No, I've got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lamb, from the freezer. . . . I don't much like cooking it frozen, Sam, but I'm taking a chance on it this time. You think it'll be all right?"

"Personally," the grocer said, "I don't believe it makes any difference."

The prolonged conversation with the grocer strengthens Mary's alibi by extending her absence from home.

The facts that there are so many policemen assigned to the investigation and that they stay so late searching the premises for the murder weapon, provides Mary with an excuse to invite them to have dinner. If they weren't well acquainted with Mary and her husband, they wouldn't violate protocol by accepting her invitation; but since her husband was "one of us," they regard Mary as "one of us" as well.  This is a ticklish plot problem--how to get the cops to eat the evidence.

There was a great deal of hesitating among the four policemen, but they were clearly hungry, and in the end they were persuaded to go into the kitchen and help themselves.

Because her husband was a cop, the other detectives and uniformed officers spend an unusually long time on the investigation, thus giving the lamb enough time to thaw and cook. Time was another plot problem for Dahl to solve. All he had was the idea of a wife killing her husband with a frozen leg of lamb--but then he had to give her enough time to cook it in order to commit the perfect crime by disposing of the murder weapon. A big piece of meat frozen solid obviously takes a long time to cook. Normally, she probably would have let it thaw out overnight and cooked it the next day, but under the circumstances she had to speed up the whole process and have the lamb ready for the hungry men within about four hours. Patrick came home right at five o'clock, and it was a little after nine when she felt safe about serving dinner.

The search went on. . . . It began to get late, nearly nine she noticed by the clock on the mantle.

eNotes Study Guide for "Lamb to the Slaughter" discusses five other themes. These are Betrayal, Identity, Love and Passion, Passivity, and Justice and Injustice. See reference link below.

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What is the main purpose of the story "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

If you are making an oral presentation of Roald Dahl's short story "Lamb to the Slaughter", you can choose your main purpose from the following thematic elements that are present in the story:

1. The instinct of survival-  In the story we find a happily-married pregnant woman, Mary Maloney, enjoying herself in the lap of comfort and protection. Suddenly, her entire world comes crashing down when her husband comes from work and, out of nowhere, tells her that he is leaving her. 

When Mary snaps and clubs her husband to death with the frozen lamb, she is not premeditating a murder. It is instinct, more than anger, what drives her to the ultimate act of insanity. Maybe her world, as well as her sanity, come both crashing down with her husband's cruelty.

Also, when Mary creates her alibi and then feeds the murder weapon to the police who arrive at her house, she is not really thinking about purposely hiding a murder. She is, first and foremost, thinking about protecting herself; a good citizen who committed a dreadful, but impulsive, action. However she is also thinking about protecting her unborn child. 

2. Connubial complacency- What could have possibly caused the deterioration of the Maloney's marriage? We could assume that it was another woman, but the actual words are not said in the story. All we know is that, by all accounts, Mary was perfectly happy prior to her husband's revelation. However, was she too comfortable while signals of a bad marriage were everywhere? Do we know that her husband was a good man, or that they were even happy together? All we know is that he is a policeman which, to our common knowledge, represents itself as a dutiful and respectable profession. However, is he a doting husband or is this merely what Mary makes herself believe? Could getting too used to the idea that things are OK be a very bad mistake in married life? Could it lead to the believe that things are OK, when they are not?

3. Who is Mary?- Roald Dahl changes the character of Mary from that of a simple, happy wife to that of a woman who is quite capable of planning the perfect murder. This is an interesting shift considering that an "average" person would be too shocked and nervous to think of so many details to cover the tracks of a murder. We must allow ourselves the benefit of the doubt: is Mary a psychopath wolf dressed as an innocent lamb? Was she ever the type of wife who, like many other women, would fantasize on what she would do if her husband ever threatened to leave her. In reality...what DO we REALLY know about Mary? Think about the way that she reacts as the men eat the lamb with which she kills her husband

And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.

Therefore, there are many things to consider as focal points for a presentation on "Lamb to the Slaughter." The story is deceivingly simple, for it contains dark aspects of human nature that include violence and perversity among other things. There is a lot of information that you can gather from this short story. Just make sure that you do NOT select but ONE thematic element. One topic will render you enough information to support your main idea. 

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What are the themes of "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl?

Your question was edited to reflect only one request as per Enotes standards.

Roald Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" most noteworthy themes reflect the conflict between fantasy and reality that the character of Mary Malone displays throughout the story.The fantasy lies on Mary's acquired identity of wife, future mother, and happy homemaker. She has made of her home a middle class utopia. Yet, the reader (and apparently Mary) does not know what is really happening within the marriage. Has Patrick been displaying obvious signs of dissatisfaction that Mary has chosen to ignore? Is this an actually happy marriage? Is abuse being atoned for with superficial bliss? Hence, fantasy versus reality is the theme that serves as the background to other conflicting sub-themes.

Another of those themes is love versus submissiveness. Mary Malone's passivity and willingness to please are synonymous with the ideal middle class life; a wife stays home, serves the husband, and tends to the house. Her reward would be her husband's utter satisfaction, as well as his income, as he is the sole provider and head of household.

However, in Mary's passivity seems to coincide with a secretly non-altruistic desire of being validated with praise or demonstrations of love. Judging by the behavior of Patrick Maloney, Mary is likely to lack that validation.

A second thematic conflict is loyalty versus betrayal. In Patrick's actions we see coldness of heart as well as of character; how can a man leave his wife when she is six months pregnant with his own first child? When he perpetrates his betrayal, her loyalty seems amplified; Mary even insists on getting dinner ready as usual. Yet, it is here when she snaps, kills him, and then has to figure out how to cover her actions.

One last theme is justice versus injustice: A man has been murdered by his wife, seemingly in a moment of insanity, and because of what he does to her. Is it fair that Mary should be home free just because she knew how to make the weapon disappear? Is it fair that she was left by her husband? Is it fair to put her in jail with no previous record and a six month pregnancy? All these conflicting questions are part of the theme, and the answers only come to the reader depending on their own schema and opinion of Mary and Patrick.

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Identify the theme of the story "Lamb to the Slaughter."

One of the themes of this story is the notion of gender roles and roles in a bourgeois, 1950s heterosexual marriage. These roles usually include a man who goes out and makes money while the meek woman stays at home to clean and care for the children. There is nothing inherently wrong with these roles; the problem is that they've been used to suggest that women should not work and/or should "serve" their husbands. During the time this story was written, those roles were overly and overtly romanticized as the ideal roles in a marriage. 

When Patrick Maloney reveals to his pregnant wife Mary that he's leaving her, she is shocked, but he does not stop her from getting dinner at this time. Up to this point, the narrator has painted the pictured of that romanticized, bourgeois marriage. Patrick is the domineering, working head of the household and Mary is the subjected, meek woman at home who does not live for herself because that is not her role. She has lived vicariously through her husband: 

She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel - almost as a sunbather feels the sun - that warm male glow that came out of him to her when they were alone together. 

Patrick is dismissive and condescending in revealing the news that he's leaving her because he thinks that is his role. His coldness reveals the lack of compassion he has for Mary's feelings. He yells at her when she continues to make dinner, saying that he is going out, presumably without her. This is the moment when Mary snaps out of her expected role and becomes the dominant one. Not only does she take control of the situation, but she manages to conceive of a foolproof plan to get away with it by having the policemen eat the evidence. She has shifted roles: from meek to strong and in control. 

Another theme is betrayal. Patrick betrayed her with cold indifference. He betrays her in abandoning her, for whatever reason we can only assume. She betrayed him, in a sense, by killing him. They are both clearly at fault, but what is interesting is that although Mary's crime is worse, it is easy to sympathize with her; she had been living in a supposedly ideal marriage but it was a relationship in which she was clearly treated like a servant to her husband. 

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What is the theme of the passage in "Lamb to the Slaughter"?

Mary Maloney is a devoted wife who has no idea that her husband plans to leave her. His news comes as a complete shock, compounded by the fact that she is pregnant with his child. Horrified by his insensitivity, Mary Maloney swings a frozen leg of lamb at him in an almost reflexive motion to his final, cutting comment. And then she realizes that she has killed him.

This leads to some quick decision-making:

It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast. As the wife of a detective, she knew quite well what the penalty would be. That was fine. It made no difference to her. In fact, it would be a relief. On the other hand, what about the child? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both—mother and child? Or did they wait until the tenth month? What did they do?


Mary Maloney didn’t know. And she certainly wasn’t prepared to take a chance.

This leads to a theme central to the story: Women will go to extraordinary lengths to protect their children when they feel they have no other options.

Her husband had proved himself unfaithful, and Mary realizes that she needs to be much more than a doting, submissive wife to survive the aftermath of what she's done. She thus uses her stereotyped role to her advantage, playing up to the detectives who come to investigate and even feeding them the actual murder weapon.

Mary transforms herself quickly in reaction to her crime and in an effort to save both herself and her unborn child.

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