Lamb to the Slaughter by •Roald Dahl About this template Author •Roald Dahl –1916-1990 –British Novelist –5 Children 2 Other Works! •Wrote for adults and children •Wrote: –James and the Giant Peach –Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 3 1. Origin of Title Let’s start with the first set of slides 4 “ The setting of the story is in a town in America during the 1950s. 5 Excerpt from a 1950s Home Economics Textbook Compiled by Ms. Leslie Blankship Columbus, Ohio ◉ “Have dinner ready: Plan ahead even the night before to have a delicious meal on time. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospects of a good meal are part of the warm welcome needed.” ◉ “The goal: Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.” 6 Now it’s time to read… 7 Narration You can also split your content •3rd Person Limited -Mary is telling the story 8 Conflict In two or three columns Internal External –Needs to save unborn –Mary vs. Patrick child –Mary vs. Detectives 9 Dark Humor Dark humor is the use of the grotesque, morbid, or absurd for darkly comic purposes. 10 Dark humor became widespread in popular culture, especially in literature and film, beginning in the 1950s; it remains popular toward the end of the twentieth century. Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22 (1961) is one of the best-known examples in American fiction. 11 Dark Humor Use charts to explain your ideas The image of the cheerful housewife suddenly smashing her husband’s skull with the frozen meat intended for his dinner is itself darkly humorous for its unexpectedness and the grotesque incongruity of the murder weapon. 12 Dark Humor And tables to compare data The ultimate example of dark humor in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is, of course, the spectacle of the policemen and detectives sitting around the Maloney kitchen table, speculating about the murder weapon while they unwittingly devour it. 13 Setting ◉ ◉ ◉ A town in America during the 1950s. During this time, there was a certain stigma on divorced women. The idea of being disgraced by society may have caused Mary to act out and kill her husband. 14 Symbols The frozen leg of lamb is also symbolic and indeed constitutes the central symbol of the story. The piece of meat is already a token of violence: an animal traditionally viewed as meek and gentle slaughtered for carnivorous consumption. The idea of a lamb resonates with biblical symbols, such as the scapegoat mentioned in Leviticus, the ram that substitutes for Isaac in the tale of Abraham and Isaac, or Jesus himself, “the Lamb of God.” But Dahl’s story reverses the connotation of these biblical images. 15 Our process is easy Theme: Betrayal Patrick Maloney’s unexplained decision to leave his pregnant wife. This violation of the marriage-vow is obviously not the only betrayal in the story, however. Mary’s killing of her husband is perhaps the ultimate betrayal. Her elaborately planned alibi and convincing lies to the detectives also constitute betrayal. 16 Let’s review some concepts Theme: Identity At the level of popular psychology, Dahl makes it clear through his description that Mary has internalized the middle class ideal of a young 1950’s housewife, maintaining a tidy home and catering to her husband; pouring drinks when the man finishes his day is a gesture that comes from movies and magazines of the day. 17 Theme: Identity ◉ Mary’s sudden murderous action shatters the image that we have of her and that she seems to have of herself. Dahl demonstrates, in the murder, that “identity” can be fragile. ◉ Once she shatters her own identity, Mary must carefully reconstruct it for protective purposes, as when she sets up an alibi by feigning a normal conversation with the grocer. 18 Story’s Plot: Taking Apart a Short Story 19 The Introduction We are introduced to the MAIN characters: ◉ ◉ Wife (protagonist) Husband (antagonist) other characters: grocer and policemen Situation/climate: ◉ Mary is waiting for her husband to come home from work. It is clear she really loves him because she can’t wait for him to come home. We are introduced to the main setting ◉ Maloney’s house 20 We are introduced to some small conflict: ◉ ◉ Tension between the wife and husband Patrick acts a little strange and detached which worries Mary The Rising Action 21 Rising Action Patrick hears her walking back and tells her rudely that he is going out for dinner and turns his back towards her. Mary walks to the cellar to get the food that they will be eating for dinner. Patrick says he is divorcing Mary and she is horrified and in disbelief. 22 The Climax “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. She might as well have hit him with a steel bar.” Mary, at that moment, made a decision. The decision was to kill her husband. She could have went down the path always taken and let him go and deal with things later, but she chose to take the path less taken and murder her husband. 23 The Falling Action 24 Falling Action 25 Conclusion The story ends and all the loose ends are wrapped up by the police eating the murder weapon and the murder going unsolved for as one detective said, “Get the weapon and you’ve got the murderer”. 26 Theme 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. Irony Situational Irony: When what happens in the story is the opposite of what is expected. Something about the situation is completely unexpected. What was completely unexpected that happened in the story? Dramatic Irony: When the reader knows something that the characters do not. What is something in the story that we know that the characters in the story do not? Where can we find that?
