Lamb to the Slaughter - Essay Example

Hong Le OKlock English 1A July 19, Lamb to the Slaughter Have you ever had what you love taken away from you? What did you want to do about it? In “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Roald Dahl gives an example of what love will do to someone if it is taken away. The story takes place in the early twentieth century, and is about a woman, as typical housewife. She is bright, loves her husband over everything on earth, which leads to, Mary are killing her husband. Without any doubt love is a powerful feeling.

Dahl also communicates to the reader that the contrast is unexpected. In this short story, Roald Dahl uses the literary devices of dramatic irony, the conflicts, and foreshadowing to depict a dark comedy by grasping the idea of a tragedy becoming humorous. The use of irony can easily captivate and excite us. Many a times in order to understand the moral of the story or the theme; it needs one to be able to recognize irony. There are multiple uses and examples of irony throughout this short story.

One example is when Mary Maloney goes to the grocery store after she kills her husband; she acts as if nothing has happened and gives the grocery store clerk the idea that everything is fine. This is considered dramatic irony because the reader knows more about what’s taken place than some of the characters in the story. The clerk thinks Patrick is at home waiting for dinner, but we know he is dead. Another example is when the policemen are eating the leg of lamb and one says "Probably right under our very noses.

What do you think, Jack? "(Dahl 9).This is dramatic irony because the weapon used to kill Patrick really is right under their noses. Yet they have obviously committed one of the worst errors possible in this crime scene, and lost the pivotal evidence they would need to for finding the killer, they continue eating, assuming the leg of lamb could never be a weapon, while Mary Maloney is giggling in the other room. In other words, Dahl is trying to capture here, and the dramatic irony really catches the tone of the dark comedy.

That makes the audience feel the ideas of a tragedy as something funny. Therefore, relating back to the overall picture of the piece of literate as a dark comedy. The conflict then begins to arise again as she creates an alibi and brings in the police to catch the murderer. There are two external conflicts in this story. The first of these conflicts is between Mary and Patrick as Patrick tells his pregnant wife that he is going to leave her, and then Mary hits her husband with a frozen leg of lamb.

The second conflict is in Marys attempt of avoiding of being caught. She knows that if she is caught she will be executed and fears that her unborn child would be killed as well. This becomes the main conflict of the story and leads to the ultimate resolution of the story in which the detectives eat the evidence of her crime. She goes through an internal conflict when she has the news of a divorce. Do not go out thinking that Mary Maloney was just a crazy person. She was crazy in love, she wanted a life with her husband but she couldn’t control love and love controlled her.

Foreshadowing is a device used to give the reader clues as to what is expected to happen in the story and is a key element when writing about a dark comedy. An example of foreshadowing occurs when Patrick takes his drink : ".as he speaks, he performs an unusual thing. He lifts his glass and drains it in one.” (Dahl l). Patrick does not usually act like this. He is obviously uneasy, most likely trying to work up the courage to do or say something unpleasant. His actions foreshadow ominous things to come.

A second idea of foreshadowing comes from something at the beginning of the book, the title. The title “Lamb to the Slaughter.”(Dahl 1). The original use of "Lamb to the Slaughter" refers to someone who goes innocently and unconcernedly into a dangerous or life threatening situation. The story "Lamb to the Slaughter," it has a number of meanings though. The first clear meaning is one that is a form of dark humor. The lamb in this case is actually a murder weapon. This twists the meaning of lamb to the slaughter into something that is not a metaphor but what actually happens.

While the first meaning is clear, the metaphorical use of the statement is still valid and in fact there are two people who go into a situation like lambs to the slaughter. The first of these is the murder victim who, while knowing he is going to do something uncomfortable, has no idea what is going to happen to him. The second though is Mary herself. It is the shock because she doesn’t know what is coming and that shock is what drives her over the edge. As a reader of this story, one would never expect something as simple as the title to explain and foreshadow so much of the story.

The great amount of foreshadowing put into this text creates the mood of satiric humor which is exactly what the author had intended for his readers. Each one of the literary devices stated above contribute to the idea that “Lamb to the Slaughter” is a dark comedy. Different examples support this idea and make it come clear throughout the short story. I think “Lamb to The Slaughter” was a good short story because the characters were interesting and unpredictable, and the story kept its readers in suspense until the end because they did not know whether Mary is found or not.

Also the story was good because it was original and funny. Dahl’s success in making this story a dark comedy is what made the literature such an interesting piece to read. Changes Made: There were instances of events where the story was written in two tenses, the present and the past. These changes have been corrected to great percentage. Number of semi colons that did not adjust in the text were replaced by the full stop. Alignment was adjusted. Other changes in the structure of sentences are highlighted in the bold letters.

Which can be compared to the previous paper to determine the extent of work being conducted in editing.