At the beginning of the story Mary Maloney was the typical 1950's house wife in the way in which she looked after the house and her husband. The room was described as being, "warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight." She would spend her time sewing when she had time from cleaning and making him food.
The relationship between the police man and his wife is not very good in terms of equality, because she spends all of her time sitting around and waiting for him to come home from work. All she does is to look after the house and cook food for him which is a reflection on the social standing of women. Being a house keeper is regarded as less important than being a police officer. Today a young married couple would both have jobs until they have kids, but in those days the woman would stay at home and do what the woman in the story does. However she is not as stupid as she is made out to be because she has got away with murder. Since she is going to have his baby and she did everything that he asked of her she was surprised when one day he came home and said, "This is going to be a shock to you, I'm afraid,". It must have been something really horrible because she was so shocked she did not even argue with him or even say anything. But all he cared about was that "there needn't be any fuss" because "It would not be very good for my job."
After he had told her she thought about it for a while and she hoped that the whole thing was a day dream and that he had not even spoken to her. After all she thought she was a good wife to him because she would stay at home and make him meals which he liked and she would also do all of the house work. So she asked him if he would like any supper but he said, "No" but she went on to make it anyway. As she was walking across the room and down into the cellar she "couldn't feel her feet touching the floor." When she was down in the cellar she went into the deep-freeze and took a hold of the first thing she could see, which was a leg of lamb. She was "holding the thin bone -end of it," in her hand as she went up the stairs when she got into the living room where she saw her husband standing by the window. So she paused for a bit when he said "For god sake, Don't make supper for me. I am going out." At that moment she was so mad that she went up behind him and hit him over the head with the leg of lamb. She was so shocked that she stood there looking at the body for a while until she said to herself, "So what if I've killed him."
Her mind was so clear and fast now because as the wife of a detective she knew exactly what the penalty was for such a crime. She thought about what they would do with her since she had an unborn child, but she did not know and she was not prepared to take a chance. She came up with the idea of pretending that nothing had happened and that she would put the leg of lamb into the cooker and go to the local grocers where she would buy something for his tea. So she practised saying what she would say to the grocer. She said "Hullo Sam" aloud but she thought that it seemed "peculiar". She is being portrayed as being a gentle house wife that can not think for her self.
When she goes into the shop she pretends nothing has happened and talks to him normally. He believes that nothing has happened because he can not see through what she is doing, in setting up an alibi. Part of the reason is that he does not think for a minute that she could kill a man. So she uses this to her advantage even to the policemen.
Soon there were lots of people in the house, first the doctor then a police photographer and some more detectives. She told her story to them in more detail in which she gave the grocer as her alibi. She was happy to find that they had checked the greengrocer out and even happier when the detective came back and she realised that they did not suspect her.
The position of the woman in this story was that she sat at home waiting for him to come home every day and when it was convenient for him to break up with her she was supposed to make no fuss. Her husband had this assumption and his colleagues too had the same idea about their own wives. This is shown when they could not believe for a minute that she could have killed him. This demonstrates that they think that all women were good for was to have kids and to look after their house for them as they went out and earned some money. She uses this to her advantage as she persuades the detectives to eat the Leg of Lamb which was the murder weapon. When they are eating it one of them says that the weapon was, " Probably right under our noses." This is when she goes into another room and starts to giggle. She giggles because she knows that she has just got away with murder and that they were much more stupid than she was because they were even eating the murder weapon which was ironic.
The way in which she is presented in the story changed greatly from the beginning to the end. At the start she was portrayed as an ordinary house wife that was not too clever because all she did was to do the cleaning or to sit around the house doing sewing. At the end of the story she is portrayed in a completely different manner as now she is the sneaky, clever woman that has just got away with murder and she has even managed to get rid of the evidence by using her charms to persuade the police men to eat it.
The main character in 'Lamb to the Slaughter' is Mary Maloney. Dahl spends a long time at the beginning of the story creating an impression of her as a loving wife and house-proud women. 'Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home', 'She took his coat and hung it in the closet', 'Fresh ice-cubes in the Thermos bucket'. There is also a personal description of the woman that paints a portrait of her as placid and innocent.
This includes statements such as 'a slow, smiling air', 'drop of her head . . . Was curiously tranquil', and 'this was her sixth month with child'.
Mrs Maloney is also desperate for her husband to return home. 'Please herself . . . That each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.' I think that Dahl causes the reader to hold this impression so that Mary Maloney appears the complete antithesis of a murderess. By doing this Dahl ensures that there is more shock involved when she actually kills her husband. Another effect of making the reader like the woman is that the audience wants her to get away with the crime and so continues to read the story to find out whether she does or not.
Mrs Maloney does not appear to be a murderess, more likely a victim. The fact that she was pregnant makes her seem incapable of such an atrocity, an example of Dahl showing that appearances can be deceptive
Mary Maloney is a devoted wife and expectant mother. She waits happily each night for the arrival of her husband Patrick, home from work at the police station. On this particular night, though, she can tell something is wrong. In disbelief, she listens as Patrick tells her that he is leaving her for another woman. [Actually Dahl never really says this; the details are left up to the reader's imagination.] Dazed, she goes into the kitchen to prepare their supper and pulls a large frozen leg of lamb from the deep freeze. Still numb, she carries it into the living room and without warning bashes her husband over the head with it. As she looks at Patrick lying dead on the floor, she slowly begins to come back to her senses. Immediately she realizes the ramifications of what she has done. Not wanting her unborn child to suffer as a result of her crime, she begins planning her alibi. She places the leg of lamb in a pan in the oven and goes down to the corner grocery to get some food for "Patrick's dinner" (making sure the grocer sees her normal and cheerful state of mind). She returns home and screams when she finds Patrick lying on the floor. She calls the police and informs them that she found her husband lying dead on the floor. Within hours swarms of officers are searching the house and conducting an investigation. Mary's story of coming home from the grocer and finding him is corroborated as she had planned. While the police are searching fruitlessly into the night for the murder weapon, Mary offers them some lamb that she had prepared for dinner. They are happy to oblige. While they lounge in the kitchen and discuss the case (their mouths "sloppy" with meat), Mary Maloney sits in the living room and giggles softly to herself.