Lamb To The Slaughter Doloney Character Analysis

In the story “Lamb to The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, the protagonist, Mrs. Maloney, undergoes a substantial change: in the beginning of the story she appears to be caring, kind and genuine and at the end of the story, she is a deceitful person capable of murder. In this way, she is characterized as a dynamic character.

In the beginning of the book she is caring and kind towards her husband and willing to do anything for him. For example, the text states: ”...she made the drinks, a strong one for him and a weak one for herself; and soon she was back again in her chair with the sewing, and he was in the other chair, holding the tall glass, rolling it gently so that the ice knocked musically against the side of the glass. For her, this was always
a wonderful time of day” (1). This shows the reader that she is happy and content with her life and she is not pretending or acting to like it; she actually loves her life. We know this because the author uses words like “musically” and “wonderful” to show that her contentment.

The shift in her character begins with the act of murdering her husband by hitting him with a leg of lamb. She seems to do it out of anger and shock that he has decided to leave her, but she expresses no emotion. The text shows this: “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” (2). Her lack of hesitation in hitting her husband is followed up by a matter-of-fact reaction to killing him: “All right, she told herself. So I've killed him” (2), suggesting that Mary feels no sadness or guilt over killing her husband, despite being such a “wonderful” wife.

The change in her character is even more dramatic towards the end of the story after she killed her husband because she quickly decides she needs to cover up the murder by creating an alibi and putting on a show for the police.
In other words, she now becomes a deceitful person, not just a murderer. Before she goes to the grocery store, she practices her lines: “Then she washed her hands, ran upstairs, sat down in front of the mirror, fixed her makeup, and tried to smile. The smile was rather peculiar. She tried again. "Hello, Sam" she said brightly, aloud. The voice sounded peculiar, too" (3). She puts on a convincing show for the store owner and later, for the police, when she tells the story of returning from the store only to find her husband dead. In doing so, we see how deceitful and selfish she has become, very different from the perfect wife that she seemed to be in the beginning of the story. These examples show that Mrs. Maloney, the protagonist of the story, is a dynamic character because she changes substantially from beginning to the end of the story. In the beginning she appeared to be kind, caring and willing to do anything for her husband, but soon after she killed her husband and then tried to cover it up and get away with murder. With this story Roald Dahl is trying to tell the reader to not judge a book by its cover. In other words, people can appear to be kind and content with their lives, but deep down inside they could be capable of devious
things.