Mary Maloney in Roald Dahl's Lamb To The Slaughter (Free Essay Example)

Mary Maloney from “Lamb To The Slaughter” by Roald Dahl is the most creative killer in my opinion, because she  killed her husband in a way no one would suspect as well as successfully got rid of the murder weapon, formulated a alibi, leaving no trace behind.

To start off,  Mary is intelligent and is a quick thinker. After killing her husband she wasted no time in formulating a believable alibi and creating a scene to make her alibi believable .  “She carried the meat into the kitchen, placed it in a pan, turned the oven on high, and shoved it inside.”( Dahl  pg 4) this explains how Mary got rid of her evidence. As well as “Patrick’s decided he’s tired and doesn’t want to eat out tonight,” she told him. “We usually go out Thursdays, you know, and now he’s caught me without any vegetables in the house.” ( Dahl pg 5) here demonstrates Mary telling the cashier her alibi that she came up with before leaving her house, setting her plan into action. 

Next, Mary got rid of her murder weapon, Not many killers can get rid of there murder weapon so swiftly and cleanly, not leaving a single trace behind, yet Mary was able to not only get rid of the frozen lamb leg but also feed it to her dead husbands co-workers, friends, officers and detectives which was quite an unexpected event. “Here you all are, and good friends of dear Patrick’s too, and helping to catch the man who killed him.  You must be terribly hungry by now because it’s long past your supper time, and I know Patrick would never forgive me, God bless his soul, if I allowed you to remain in his house without offering you decent hospitality. Why don’t you eat up that lamb that’s in the oven? It’ll be cooked just right by now.”( Dahl  pg 9) this shows Mary guiltriping the officers, and detectives into eating the murder weapon.