“Lamb to the Slaughter”

Summary
Ever feel like you’re the lamb about to get slaughtered in the
classroom? The “Lamb to the Slaughter” Teaching
Guide contains lesson plans, graphic organizer handouts with
answer keys, essay rubrics, a summary and analysis of the
story, discussion ideas, a quiz, and more. Lessons focus on
irony, theme, plot, characterization, point of view, literary
analysis, and more.

A pregnant Mary Maloney awaits her husband’s

arrival. He arrives. The two enjoy a before dinner
cocktail. Mr. Maloney is acting weird because
he’s about to divulge something to his wife. He
tells her the news—the reader does not know
exactly what he tells her—that leaves Mrs.
Maloney in a state of shock.She pretends
whatever it was he told her isn’t true and starts to
make dinner. She pulls a frozen leg of lamb out of
the freezer and carries it into the living room
where her husband insists he’s leaving.

She strikes him over the head with the frozen meat and kills him.

Mary then heads to the market to buy vegetables, pretending nothing happened. When
she arrives home, she finds her husband on the floor, murdered.

She calls the police department. Several officers arrive. They search the house for the
murder weapon. Mary offers them whiskey and then she asks them to eat the meal—the
leg of lamb—she’d prepared for her husband.

They reluctantly agree and enjoy a delicious leg of lamb while discussing what could
have happened to the murder weapon.

“Lamb to the Slaughter” Analysis

 Irony. A lot of what happens in this dark tale is not what I expected—a pregnant
woman bludgeoning her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, for example, and
then acting surprised her husband’s been murdered. The verbal irony as the
detectives investigate is priceless. Yes, priceless!
 Pun. Lamb to the slaughter is a play on words involving the murder instrument
and the death of someone who is unaware. The connotation that lambs are
innocent makes one question who the lamb is. Is it the wife? Is it the husband? Is
it the lamb?
 Character Analysis. Mild mannered housewife or ruthless murderer?
 Allusion. The story’s title is an allusion to the Bible most commonly associated
with the crucifixion of Jesus—metaphorically referred to as “The Lamb of God.”

 Plot. Is the murder the climax and everything that ensues the falling action? Or is
the murder the rising action and the detective’s search and destruction of the
murder weapon the climax?
 Making Inferences. Much of what happens in “Lamb to the Slaughter” must be
inferred by the reader.
 Narrative Writing. Three options present themselves: (1) Write the missing
dialogue, using inferences; (2) Write a story extension; (3) Write a scene from the
husband’s point of view.