Essays on Lamb to The Slaughter

1954, by Roald Dahl

Short story

The short story is about the murder of police detective Patrick Maloney by his wife Mary. Driven to homicide after her husband's unexpected announcement that he's leaving her and their unborn child, Mary quickly regains her senses after fatally killing him with the leg of lamb.

The main theme in 'Lamb to the Slaughter' is concerned with how we overlook the true nature of a person or situation when we allow preconceived notions to cloud our judgment.

Mary Maloney, Patrick Maloney, and Sergeant Jack Noonan

"Lamb to the Slaughter" demonstrates Dahl's fascination with horror (with elements of black comedy), which is seen in both his adult fiction and his stories for children. The story was suggested to Dahl by his friend Ian Fleming: "Why don't you have someone murder their husband with a frozen leg of mutton which she then serves to the detectives who come to investigate the murder?"

Once the policemen are called to investigate Patrick's murder, then, the lamb comes to represent both a sacrifice for the detectives (as food) and a weapon against them (as that sacrifice as food entails the destruction of evidence).