In "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl, what feelings does Mary experience and how does she prove her innocence?
The story begins with visual imagery highlighting the warmth and cozy atmosphere of Mary's home. Her own feelings are described as tranquil, content, and hopeful. She looks forward to her husband's arrival home with great anticipation.
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. She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a chair, for the way he came in a door, or moved slowly across the room with long strides.
Mary's feelings about her husband indicate that her worship of her husband is absolute and total in its trust. So, when he informs her that he is going to leave her, her first sentiments are that of incredulity and denial. It is obvious that Mary had never expected to be the...
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recipient of such devastating news. Earlier in the story, the author mentions that Mary is six months pregnant, so the disastrous news that her husband has found another woman almost incapacitates her. She is in shock and resorts to the comfort of routine in order to process her new precarious situation; slowly, as if in a trance, Mary prepares to make her husband dinner. She takes out a leg of lamb.
She couldn't feel anything at all- except a slight nausea and a desire to vomit. Everything was automatic now-down the steps to the cellar, the light switch, the deep freeze, the hand inside the cabinet taking hold of the first object it met.
However, her husband's rough and insensitive refusal evinces an instantaneous and visceral reaction in her. She instinctively brings the frozen leg of lamb down on her husband's head.
Interestingly, the author tells us that, after killing her husband, Mary's thoughts become clearer. The stimulus of one emotional, spontaneous act awakens Mary's senses and maternal instincts. Now, her thoughts and feelings turn towards protecting the future of her child. Without delay, Mary refers to her years as the wife of a detective to help her concoct a plausible alibi. She practices careful and natural responses before she orders vegetables and a cheesecake dessert from the grocer. By allowing the grocer to wait on her, Mary knows that he will later substantiate her story when the police question him.
Mary then walks home to 'discover' the body of her dead husband. She allows herself to give way to her grief before calling the police; her grief is as natural as it is cathartic. She has just killed the man she once loved deeply; Mary knows that she must play the part of a distraught wife to perfection is she is to escape prosecution for her crime. As a strategy, Mary allows her natural, feminine expressions of grief to lull the detectives into security. She cleverly presents herself as the innocent and vulnerable widow who has been dealt a cruel hand by the vagaries of fate.
As a stroke of genius, Mary offers the men whiskey, further dulling their senses and disarming their instincts. The men drink in order to further avoid disappointing the 'fragile,' grieving widow. Mary also serves the leg of lamb to the detectives. In everything, she manages to cater to the male desire for domestic comfort and hospitality. While the men enjoy the leg of lamb, Mary giggles to herself: the detectives are eating forensic evidence as well as the murder weapon.
How did Mary feel after killing her husband in "Lamb to the Slaughter"?
Mary goes through a rapid series of emotions in the aftermath of killing her husband. First, she experiences a sense of shock at what she has just done, which was to whack him on the back of the head with a frozen leg of lamb.
After her husband falls dead to the ground, the sound effect of his body upsetting a table as he crashes brings her out of her shock. At this point, she feels "cold and surprised." Cold indicates that even though her first shock is over, she is still not feeling any emotion. She doesn't seem to care that she has killed him. She is also surprised, as if the action took place without forethought. She is startled because she killed her husband impulsively, without any idea she was going to do so.
Mary then begins to feel remarkably clear-headed. She starts to think very rapidly. She goes over possible penalties she might suffer and their impact on her unborn child. She realizes she has to hide her crime, so she jumps into action, quickly beginning to cook the lamb chop to hide the evidence that it is the murder weapon.
The need to survive for the sake of her child overcomes any guilt, grief, or remorse she might feel in the immediate aftermath of the murder.
Does Mary in "Lamb to the Slaughter" have a guilty conscience?
We don't know for sure if Mary does have a guilty conscience. However, if she does, then she doesn't really show it. Although her killing of Patrick is carried out in the heat of the moment, it is still a crime all the same. And Mary's subsequent behavior doesn't suggest that she feels any remorse for what she's done. She meticulously sets about covering up her crime and establishing an alibi. There's the coldly methodical way she concocts a story for the police. Then, of course, there's her novel method for disposing of the evidence. Again, one would have to say that this doesn't appear to be the behavior of someone with a guilty conscience.
Besides, if Mary really did feel any guilt or remorse for what she's done, then she has ample opportunity to confess to the police when they arrive. It's clear from all the available evidence that this is not a premeditated act; no charge of murder would've been filed against Mary as a consequence. Yet she chooses not to confess, and this, in conjunction with all the other evidence, indicates that Mary doesn't really have a guilty conscience at all.
Where is Mary in "Lamb to the Slaughter" and how is she feeling?
Without knowing what point in the story this question is asking about, it is a little tougher to answer. The first possibility of Mary walking somewhere is just after Patrick breaks his terrible news to her. We are told that she walks across the room and then down into the cellar to get dinner. We are told that everything is running on automatic, and Mary can't even feel her feet touching the floor. She is in shock and feeling slightly nauseous. I don't believe that she is thinking or feeling much of anything. Her body is working on muscle memory, and she isn't conscious of really anything. She's been hit with such devastating news that her mental and emotional state has been put on hold because she can't handle anymore. This blank mental state continues through her return upstairs up to the moment when she hits Patrick in the head. His body hitting the floor is what snaps her brain back into action:
The violence of the crash, the noise, the small table overturning, helped bring her out of the shock.
The other possibility for this question occurs when Mary is walking back up her walkway to enter the house after having gone shopping to establish her alibi. This is a much easier question to answer because we are told that she is mentally rehearsing what her reaction needs to be "if" she sees anything "unusual, or tragic, or terrible" back at home.