Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl Analysis

A wolf in sheep's clothing; as a result of Mary Malone having such a split personality, I will explain what best describes her. In “Lamb to the Slaughter,” Mary Malone is crazed, conniving, and caring. When she found out that her husband wanted to leave her for another woman Mary became crazed: “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause, she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.” With Mr. Malone refusal to eat the lamb, Mary swung the lamb to his head killing him.  Crazed with anger and jealousy; she decided to kill him, not wanting him to be with anyone else but her. Considering how she deceived the detectives I consider Mary to be conniving: "Personally, I think the weapon is somewhere near the house." "It's probably right under our noses. What do you think, Jack?" “And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to laugh.”  To avoid being caught, she fed the detectives the murder weapon; the lamb. Although, given that in the short story we may not view Mary as caring: however, she is: “On the other hand, what about the baby? What were the laws about murderers with unborn children? Did they kill them both -- mother and child? Did they wait until the baby was born? What did they do?” Mary nevertheless cared for the life of her baby and worried about what would happen to the baby if the detectives detected she was the murderer. In conclusion. Mary is crazed, conniving and caring in the short story; “lamb to the slaughter.