Theme Of Lamb To The Slaughter

“Don’t believe everything you see. Even salt looks like sugar. - Author Unknown” This quote describes the suspense short story, Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl. The short story is about how a mother with an unborn child carries out the perfect murder. The story revolves around a pregnant wife, Mary Maloney and her husband Patrick Maloney. Betrayal by someone who is loved obsessively can cause a complete shift in personality which can cloud one's judgment about deceiving others and being vengeful. The ability to deceive others can lead to thinking it is acceptable to do something tragic. This is because they can just deceive everyone around them, and do actions without any consequences. Mary Maloney deceived everyone around her and even herself, convincing herself that she didn’t do anything wrong because she didn’t face any consequences. These themes will be demonstrated by the plot, characters, conflict, and setting. Roald Dahl used the plot to demonstrate the theme very effectively. The author introduced Mary and Patrick Maloney, who are husband and wife. Dahl also …show more content…
After the betrayal, she turned into deceiving a person. Mary is a bit unstable because it was an “if I can’t have him no one can.” After the murder, she didn’t care about the consequences she had to face because the person she loved the most she was gone, so if died it wouldn’t be a big deal. Even though Mary turned into a deceiving person she did everything for her baby because it was her last “living” memory of Patrick. The biggest obstacle in Mary’s way between freedom and a sentence were the detectives. She “overcame” this obstacle by deceiving and lying to everyone around her. The theme was demonstrated here because she did actions without consequences. This is because if she faced consequences might have realized that she had done something terrible, and try to get help to become a better