Special Langauge Arts Post of the month

Story review on Road Dahl's short story "Lamb to the slaughter".



Mr Maloney



Mr Maloney, husband of Mary Maloney is a detective, and at first he is quite a good and caring husband as he would take his wife out for dinner every Thursday after his work and it is their time together.



However as the story develops, Mr Maloney's love for starts declining. At the climax of the story, he lost all his feelings for his wife, and even starts turning a cold shoulder to her wife, no matter how had she tried to please her. This shows the other side of Mr Maloney, someone who is callous, uncaring. He is also a very selfish person. He wanted to leave her wife at the very time when she was pregnant, this shows that he was just a irresponsible father and a heartless man who just want to her pregnant wife to fend for herself. Of course he said that he will provide money and a good life for his wife. However, in my opinion, I am sure that for his pregnant wife who treats him as the center of his world, what she most needed was the love and the care of his husband. What made me really irritated about this character was that not only he was heartless he was also very selfish. He told his wife not to create a fuss as it would be bad for his work. At this point of time he was still just caring about his work and not the future life of his wife.

Patrick Maloney , the callous, selfish and heartless man.



Mary Maloney



She was firstly presented in the story as a loving wife, peaceful and beautiful woman, and a perfect housekeeper who was living in her own world of so-called "blissful' and "peaceful" world. It was just because everything she done was for her husband and she look up to her husband as the center of the world, not knowing that her husband did not love her anymore that resulted her in murdering her husband when she took the blow that her husband was going to leave her.

As the story reaches the climax, Mary Maloney's had a split personality. One as a loving woman. The other as someone one who is shrewd, calculating every step she makes, and is also a perfect actress. I am sure that if she was really an actor she will confirm be the best Hollywood actress. She shows no remorse with the murder and faces her husband's death with a lack of emotion. She is someone completely different. With her superb acting skills and intelligence, she managed to fool everyone. She had definitely got away from the murder as we can all tell from her giggles at the ending of the story.


Mary Maloney, the shrewd one or the loving one.
Who knows?