CHARACTER SKETCH – MARY MALONEY
Mary Maloney is a very interesting character who possesses many
character traits. To start with, Mary is very loving towards her husband, in the
beginning. The author writes, “ She loved him for the way he sat loosely in a
chair, for the way he came in a door, or moves slowly across the room with long
strides.”(177) This information shows that any action or movement that her
husband does, she absolutely loves because she feel as if her husband means
everything to her. Apart from Mary being a loving person, she can also be very
sneaky. Roald Dahl explains, “She sat down before the mirror, tidied her hair,
touched up her lips and face. She tried a smile.” Immediately after killing her
husband, Mary decides to act as normally as possible to cover up, she practices
in the mirror a normal conversation with her grocer, so she doesn’t look
suspicious or agitated. Furthermore, Mary Maloney can be a very persuasive
person when she wants to be. Mary says, “Please, she begged. ‘Please eat it’”.
When reading this text, one can conclude that Mary persuades her husband’s
colleagues to eat up the murder weapon (the lamb) under the pretext it will make
her feel better. Mary uses the situation of events to get herself out of trouble.
Besides being persuasive, Mary is also calculation, as after she kills her husband
she doesn’t call up the ambulance like any other person would. Instead, she
hides her crime. Dahl writes, “’That’s the way, she told herself. Do everything
normally. Keep things absolutely normal and there’ll be no need for acting at all.”
(180) This shows that as part of her plan to hide her crime, she calculated a plan
top make sure that when she arrives home from the grocers, everything is that
way it should be and nothing unusual had happened. So, overall, one can
conclude that Mary is a persuasive, sneaky, calculating person who
unintentionally kills her husband who is the only man she’s ever loved.