Gender Roles In Lamb To Slaughter

Murder Within Gender Roles What if you were born into a world where you were told if you were a woman you had to stay home and cook, clean, and take care of the kids when you got older, and if you were a man you had to go out and work would you be satisfied with that? In the short story “Lamb to Slaughter” by Roald Dahl the story is based a lot off of specific gender roles in the 1950’s. The main plot line in the story is the man works at the police station as a detective and the lady stays at home. She waits on him hand and foot and then he tells her terrible news she then reacts badly and kills him and she is never charged with murder. Mary Maloney would react to make sure it was not her who committed the crime, she would convince the police …show more content…
At this point in the story I believe that she thinks the police are getting onto her trail and that she needs to do something to distract them or get their mind off of the case. She offers each policemen a drink of whisky and says that they must be awful tired. The reason this quote fits well with Mary Maloney being guilty is because you wouldn’t just up and offer policemen drinks of whisky when they are working on a case especially since it involves her husband. That right off the bat should show that something suspicious is going on. People of the opposing side that say she is innocent based off of the fact that she is insane would say that this shows she is insane by saying anyone that was in their right mind would not offer a police officer a drink especially an alcoholic drink for that matter. That is just common sense. But, it only makes sense that she is guilty because she is trying to persuade them to think that she is just awfully sad and she doesn’t know anything so they won’t convict her of murder. That is another reason why Mary Maloney should be considered …show more content…
The reason this quote shows that she is guilty is because if she was thinking she would have just said ok turn the oven off and I’ll save the meat for later. But, she knew that the police may be on her trail so she thought what a better way to cover up the murder weapon then to get the police to eat it. As they did she was laughing which should be another sign that she was up to something. People of the opposing side would say that she is innocent upon being insane because she doesn’t remember that she put the meat in the oven in the first place and she was just being nice and friendly and wanted the men to have something to eat after working so hard. But, she is guilty because she didn’t want them to find the murder weapon and her get caught with it in her oven, so she thought that they won’t think anything of it and just think that she was offering them a nice meal. That is the third and final reason why Mary Maloney should be found