her husband push her around and she doesn’t even realise he’s
doing it, because she only ever wants to make happy.
Patrick Maloney is the husband of Mary Maloney and the
dominant one in their relationship. In the text he is represented
as a stereotypical ungrateful, grumpy husband. Also in the text
the Maloney’s would be classified as an upper class family but
even though this is so, Patrick Maloney still works full time as a
Senior Policeman. Another thing we notice about Mr. Maloney is
the fact he seems quite bored of the fact he is waited on hand
and foot by his wife.
Power plays a major part in the story Lamb to the Slaughter. And
in this story the power seems to reverse from one character to
the other, as it starts of with all the power in the hands of Patrick
Maloney. Him being the Senior Police officer at work tells us that
he must hold quite a lot of power of his work mates below him.
But obviously the person he holds the most power over in the text
is his wife, Mary Maloney; his hard working housewife who we
find out is 6 months pregnant. She is constantly fussing over
Patrick wether it is cooking his dinner or getting his slippers.
Another thing we notice is that Mr. Maloney is always the person
who makes the decisions in their relationship. Wether it has very
little or very much importance. For example what they were both
going to have for dinner, it was always whatever Mr. Maloney felt
like.
However all of this power is reversed in the text when Mary
comes back from getting the leg of lamb for her and her
husband’s dinner. She spots Patrick standing in the corner of the
room and he says, “For god’s sake! Don’t make supper for me,
I’m going out.” And that seems to set her off so she walks over
and shows physical power as she hits her husband hard over the
head with the leg of lamb, and the second he is dead a whole
new power is left with her, it is the power Mr. Maloney had once
held over her. Mary also seems to have power over the
policeman, detectives and doctors who came to investigate the
death of Mr. Maloney. They seem very sympathetic towards her
and believe every word Mrs. Maloney says about the death of her
husband.
After studying this short story it would be fair to say that Mr/Mrs
Maloney do not have stereotypical or specific gender and power
roles as they seem change their characters during the text.
Mr. Maloney is explained by Mary at the start of the story as a
loving husband and turned out to be ungrateful and unloving.
And Mrs. Maloney starts off being a shy, warm, quite woman and
ends up slaughtering her husband with a leg of lamb.
To conclude my essay however, at different times in the text both
characters hold more power then the other.
(626 words)
By lesner