1/11/12

Lamb to the Slaughter is about a woman named Mary Maloney, who is told some very bad news from her husband.  One day, when he came home for a long day of work as a police officer, he was very disengaged with her and she was scared.  He sat her down and told her something, but it is not put into the story.  From what I inferred/imagined was that he wanted a divorce.  Mrs. Maloney very calmly sits there and listens, acting as if she didn't hear a thing at all.  She just sat on the couch, staring at the man she loved so much for minutes.  Finally, she stood up and said she would make some supper.  She got a frozen leg of lamb from the freezer, she wanted to throw up, everything was automatic for her, like she wasn't in control.  Mr. Maloney became angry, not wanting her to make him supper.  Then, she came upstairs with the rock hard leg of lamb, quietly walked up behind him, and slammed it down the top of his head as hard as she could.  He fell to the ground, dead.  She stood there staring at his dead body, comprehending what she just did.  She slowly walked into the kitchen, and put the lamb in the oven.  She decided to go the store to pick up somethings for dinner.  She rehearsed what she was going to say, to pass off an act of not knowing what happened to him.  She walked back to her house with her groceries, and yelled when she came in, "Patrick! How are you, darling?"  She placed her groceries down and called the police, she said he was lying on the floor dead, sobbing.  The police arrived and she was distraught, she didn't have to act.  She had to get rid of the evidence, she offered the officers dinner over and over again.  Finally they agreed, and Mrs. Maloney sighed a huge sigh of relief.  She came out of the kitchen with the lamb.  The officers spoke with each other, puzzled because they could not find a murder weapon.  At the very end the officers say,"Personally, I think it's right here on the premises." "Probably right under our very noses.  What do you think, Jack?"  Then, in the other room, Mrs. Maloney giggled to herself.