self-identity in favor of unthinking rage. The image that readers have of her and that she has of herself is no longer compatible with reality. As the leg of lamb connects with its target, it both kills her husband and erases her sense of domestic identity.

Despite its violent, whirlwind demise—initiated by Patrick’s unexpected admission and finalized by Mary’s abrupt, destructive response—Mary must reconstruct this sense of feminine, domestic identity as a protective effort. Readers watch as she reassembles herself physically, mentally, and emotionally, donning a performative mask that successfully replicates who she was before the events of the story. Her reconfiguration of self fools the grocer and the police officers crowding her home; though readers know her hospitality and concern are a well-performed act, the characters are entirely unaware. By disguising the truth behind this veil of reconstituted feminine domesticity, Dahl suggests that identity is malleable and vulnerable, a shifting product of self-knowledge as it fits into the outside world. Indeed, the story indicates that identity, or its external presentation, can be donned at will and morphed to suit situational necessity. 

Injustice and Complicity

The story features several injustices to which other characters—and even the reader—are made complicit. Patrick’s callous disregard for his wife’s feelings in the cold, one-sided conversation in which he reveals that he plans to leave her turns readers against him. The early scenes cement him as rude and horribly ungrateful, a poor excuse for a husband and soon-to-be father. This characterization is intentional; Dahl makes Patrick unlikable to gain the backing of readers. Given insight into Mary’s consciousness, readers follow her shock and sorrow, invited into her interiority and grieving alongside her. Patrick’s unjust treatment crashes violently through her, a painful process that Dahl purposefully describes in depth. Building sympathy and outrage at this injustice, it is easier for readers to absorb Patrick’s death. Indeed, his death invokes a sense of justice: he chooses to betray the couple’s vows and violate their marriage, so he dies for it. Readers might feel vindicated by Mary’s deadly break from her once-characteristic passivity, cheering her on and reveling in the vigilantism of her actions.

Yet this sympathy is burdened by complicity. Context aside, she is now guilty of murder. Life has been lost, swiftly and brutally stolen by a blow from behind. There is nothing fair or just in this vengeance. Readers—and Mary herself—diminish the deed: “All right, she told herself. So I’ve killed him.” Rather than a devastating moral lapse or condemnable act, she frames Patrick’s death simply and matter-of-factly. She does not deny her fault, but neither does she bemoan it. He is dead, and she has killed him. Dahl tells the story in a limited third-person point of view that grants readers insight into Mary’s thoughts. As such, the assumptions, biases, and emotions that inform her perspective directly influence the conclusions readers draw. By diminishing the weight of her actions and emphasizing her rightful anger, the narrative draws readers into collusion, making them complicit in Mary’s crime.

While readers are made morally complicit, Mary makes the investigating officers physically complicit. At her invitation, they consume the leg of lamb and destroy the evidence that would implicate Mary. Their actions not only mold them into unknowing co-conspirators, but also reinforce the injustice of Patrick’s murder. He was brutally killed, attacked from behind unexpectedly; now, there is no hope of correcting this injustice. Even in death, the unjust end to his life remains unresolved. The story ends as Mary giggles; she has successfully gotten away with murder. In this story, there is no justice to be had, as readers and characters alike carry the burden of Mary’s actions.