Lamb To The Slaughter Short Story

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Compare and Contract: After reading the short story of “Lamb to the Slaughter” of Road Dahl and seeing its movie version by Alfred Hitchcock, I figure out that there are things in common between the two versions. Both versions of “Lam to the Slaughter” are about a woman named Mary Maloney, who loves her husband very much but in the moment of anger, she accidentally kills her husband who is a detective –Patrick, using a frozen lamb leg. After killing her husband, she places the leg of lamb into the oven to somehow destroy the evidence. She then visits the grocer to establish an alibi. When Mrs. Maloney gets back home from the grocer’s, she calls the police to come over and inspect the death of her husband pretending not knowing anything about…show more content…
The readers might guess that Patrick wants a divorce but why? Is that because Patrick gets bored of Mary; is he now in love with another woman? The readers do not know; but in the movie, Alfred Hitchcock makes it very clear that Patrick wants to divorce with Mary because he is in love with another woman. The events in the story version are also different from the events in the movie. In the story, after killing Patrick, Mary goes to her room upstairs, practices cheerful routine then heads to the grocer’s and has conversation with Sam at the grocer’s. But in the movie, after killing Patrick, Mary stays in the kitchen, Mary then makes a call to Molly(or Moley) telling that she will not be coming over for dinner because Patrick is tired before heading to the grocer’s, she does not have any conversation with the grocer in the movie version. In the story, when he police come for inspecting the death of Patrick, Mary cries to make it more like she does not know about her husband’s death, everything is just an sudden , she is in shock but in the movie, Mary seems to be very calmed when the police come. The movie shows that the police ask Mrs. Maloney many more questions about Mr. Maloney’s behavior when he gets

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