Lamb to the Slaughter Summary & Analysis

The opening scene emphasizes both the “duality” (everything is doubled) of the setting and its emptiness. Like the Maloneys’ marriage, Mary is the only one present, despite the fact that everything around her is meant for two.

Mary’s pregnancy and sewing are examples of her domesticity, epitomizing the traditional roles of women as child-bearers and domestic servants. The narrator emphasizes her objectification by emulating a poetic convention called “blason,” in which a poet describes a woman by targeting various body parts.

Mary fulfills the roles of caregiver and domestic servant through these loving gestures. The fact that Patrick does not reciprocate them highlights the power imbalance of their relationship, which also manifests in the way she prepares their drinks.

As a housewife, Mary is expected to stay in the private sphere of domesticity while her husband goes to work; she has been home alone all day, with no one to talk to. Yet when her husband comes home, Mary is quick to accommodate her husband’s desire for silence. The power imbalance between Mary and her husband is further skewed by her view of him as almost godlike. While her husband’s masculinity is compared to the sun, Mary is a mere “sunbather,” sustained only by her relationship to her husband.

The husband’s breaking of their usual routine and decision to drink more than usual suggests that something is wrong. The husband reinforces his patriarchal power by giving Mary orders and refusing to acknowledge her efforts as his emotional caregiver.

Mary’s attempt to get her husband to eat something is yet another example of her wifely duties as caregiver. Her husband’s rejection of her food is also a rejection of her role within the marriage. As he mentally prepares himself, he looks down as if ashamed, while Mary’s focus is entirely on him, as it has been for their entire marriage.

Mary’s husband’s mention that “it’s kind of a bad time” refers to the fact that he is abandoning not only Mary but also their unborn child. In his promise to send her money and in his dismissal of her potential emotions and reactions as “fuss,” he implicitly dismisses the idea that his wife is a thinking and feeling human being.

Unwilling to believe her husband’s rejection, Mary clings to her marriage by performing her usual duty of preparing dinner. Her husband, however, rejects both her meal and her.

Mary carries out her own sudden betrayal by killing her husband here. The murder weapon (a frozen leg of lamb) and the narrator’s description of the body comically swaying in the air are examples of Dahl’s black humor. The narrator’s comparison of the lamb to a steel club anticipates the policemen’s search for the murder weapon later in the story.

After the murder, Mary finds the death penalty to be a “relief,” because the life she had with her husband is already over. However, her resolution to survive suggests that her concern for her child exceeds her concern for herself and her marriage.

By cooking the leg of lamb for supper, Mary destroys the evidence of her crime. Unlike the murder, which she commits without fully realizing her actions, the cover-up is clearly premeditated.

Mary establishes her alibi by deceiving Sam, claiming that she is cooking dinner in order to maintain a façade of domestic happiness. She also refers to her husband by name for the first time in the story. Whereas prior to his death, Patrick Maloney was unnamed and idolized for his masculinity and power, the narrator’s and Mary’s naming of him after the murder suggests the dispossession of his masculine power. In order to maintain her façade, Mary engages in a sort of “doublethink,” deceiving herself into behaving a certain way while simultaneously remaining aware of that deception.

Cleverly incorporating kernels of truth into her story, Mary is able to deceive the police, who fail to suspect her as the real culprit. Unlike Patrick, who ignores and does not reciprocate his wife’s love, the various men who investigate Patrick’s murder treat Mary with kindness (if also condescension, at times), signaling a change in her traditionally subordinate gender role.

Whereas Mary had put so much energy into pleasing her husband, only to be rejected, now it is Mary who is refusing the efforts of the policemen who attempt to comfort her. The policemen’s offer to send her to her sister or Noonan’s wife carries with it the assumption that women (and thus Mary) are caregivers by nature and incapable of violence, again allowing Mary to escape suspicion.

Noonan reinforces this gender stereotype by assuming that the murderer is a man. Describing the weapon as a blunt metal object, Noonan confirms the narrator’s previous comparison of the leg of lamb to a steel club, and unwittingly gives Mary enough information for her to point the police in the wrong direction.

Mary’s interactions with the policemen highlight her sudden (and perhaps unrealistic) transformation from a submissive housewife to an intelligent and subtly dominant killer. Whereas during her marriage, Mary had to fetch drinks for her husband, now the policemen fetch drinks for her. Whereas Mary had attempted to provide emotional support for Patrick, with no success or reciprocation, now it is the policemen who attempt the same for her. Mary utilizes this new power by persuading the men to drink on the job, subtly undermining their credibility and objectivity.

Mary exercises her power by asking a favor of the men. However, contrary to her claims, the lamb is not a reward for their friendship with Patrick, but rather a betrayal of both Patrick and their profession, leading to the ironic twist of the story. By eating the lamb, the men destroy the evidence of the murder.

The description of Mary as “the woman” signals a greater narratorial distance from the story’s main character, indicating the extent of her transformation. The irony of the men’s speculation of the murder weapon’s location as “under [their] very noses” is another example of Dahl’s black humor.