She acts like a ghost afterwards, she can’t control what she does and everything is automatic. “She walked across the room she couldn’t feel her feet touching the floor”. When Mrs. Maloney hits Mr. Maloney with the leg of lamb and he falls to the ground it’s like she snaps out of the trance and then changes from her angel act to an unsettled character, leaving the reader intrigued as to how she will now start behaving and what she is capable of. She then comes to her senses and starts to think of an alibi for herself. She recites her act as she gets ready to go out. “She rehearsed it several times more”. She does this so that everything came natural and the grocer wouldn’t suspect anything. When she walks home she told herself “Keep things absolutely natural and there’ll be no need for any acting at all.” This shows that she is trying to convince herself that she wasn’t responsible for her actions. It is too fantastical that unordinary, loving housewife would be able to commit such an act., it wasn’t her who killed Mr. Maloney.
When she sees her husband on the ground, her action was automatic. She felt all the old love and longing come back and her emotions were real. After she rings the police and they arrive, she acts like the devoted loving wife she was at the start. Mrs. Maloney acts smart and sophisticated style towards the end of the story. Knowing that the officers would be hungry she offers the lamb to them. She knew that they wouldn’t refuse as her husband were good friends with them. “Good friends of dear Patrick”. Right at the end of the story Mary Maloney giggles to herself knowing that she got away with what she’s done and will never get caught.
Carlos – Man From The South
In the beginning Carlos is portrayed as an unusual, but pleasant person. He is dressed differently from everyone else. “Immaculately dressed in a white suit”. It’s showing that e is standing out apart from everyone. He seems normal because his politely asks the man to sit down and starts a conversation about Jamaica. When the young man and woman come and sit with the men, things started to get peculiar. Carlos asks for a light, as the young man comments on his lighter, it’s as if Carlos saw this as an opportunity to turn nothing into something. “You say dis famous lighter it never fails. Iss dat what you say?” The reader asks why Carlos is so obsessed with the lighter. As soon as the man seems interested he put his car up as the bait, and asks the man for his finger if he loses. “Why not? You win, you take de car. You lose, I take de finger.” He says this as if it is normal and gets the reader thinking and keen to find out how this scenario will be played out.
When the young man agrees to the bet, Carlos organises everything as if he’s done it before like a child’s game. As soon as they start the bet, everyone feels uneasy and they start counting down.
“Three!”
“Four!”
“Five!”
“Six!”
Roald Dahl uses these short sentences for the suspense. As they counted 8 a woman comes in, probably his wife. She then realises what’s going on and starts shaking him as a mother would to a child. She then apologises to everyone and they realises there thought was right, he had done this before. “I come back and he is at it again.” She then explains the reason why they were in Jamaica and what he’s done. She knows his ways and guessed right that he bet a car. At this point the readers are thinking how she knows this. Towards the end she explains that she herself was one of his victims. “As a matter of fact I myself won it all from him a long while ago.”
Conclusion
The man from the south is more unusual than Mary Maloney in land for slaughter. This is because at the start of the story it seems normal and set in a realistic place. It only starts to get weird after they make the bet Carlos asks for his fingers if he loses. The story is better than Lamb For Slaughter because its written in first person, it makes the reader seems they are in the story. Roald Dahl makes the story more exciting by counting down the time the man flicked the lighter. The end of the story makes it more unusual because the reader would never expect his wife to one of his victims, losing three fingers.
