Activities of Lamb To The Slaughter

These exercises were sent in by Frankie Meehan, an ESL Teacher at United World College of SE Asia, Singapore. If you have any questions, please e-mail him at fme@uwcsea.edu.sg. Thanks Frankie!

1. Jigsaw

The following excerpts all come from the short story. They are jumbled up. Try to arrange them in the correct order.

• "For God's sake," he said, hearing her, but not turning round, "don't make supper for me. I'm going out."
   
• "Tired, darling?"
  "Yes," he said. "I'm tired."
   
• "It's the old story," he said. "Get the weapon and you've got the man."
   
• "This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I'm afraid," he said.
   
• When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, and a few moments later, punctually as always, she heard the tyres on the gravel outside...
   
• "Personally, I think it's right here on the premises."
   
• All the old love and longing for him welled up inside her, and she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry her heart out.
   
• "Quick! Come quick! Patrick's dead!"
   
• Soon, other men began to come into the house. First a doctor, then two detectives, one of whom she knew by name.

2. The Perfect Murder
 
What would be the ingredients of the "perfect murder"?
Put the following ideas into order of importance. (Add ideas of your own if you want to.)

a) It should be easy to arrange.
b) It should leave no clues.
c) There should be no noise.
d) It should look like suicide.
e) It should take place in a lonely, isolated place.
f) It should be cheap.
g) No violence should be necessary.
h) It should look like an accident.
i) It should be quick.
j) The murderer should have a good alibi.

3. Vocabulary
 
Find the following words in the story and try to work out their meaning. Join them to the definitions on the right. The first one has been done to get you started!

Word	Line	Answer	Definition	Letter
anxiety	8	F	confused, not understanding	A
tranquil	12		a heavy stick with a knob at one end, for hitting someone	B
punctually	17		extremely happy	C
blissful	30		a very strong feeling which guides someone	D
amber	55		in the building	E
bewildered	89		feeling worried	F
instinct	111		comforting someone who is sad, cheering them up	G
club	137		annoyed, irrittated	H
peculiar	161		turned from liquid to solid	I
frantic	206		being kind to visitors	J
grief	206		on time, not late	K
congealed	244		mad, wild	L
on the premises	290		calm, peaceful	M
exasperated	309		extreme sadness after someone dies or goes away	N
consoling	322		strange, unusual	O
hospitality	338		an orange-yellow colour	P

Source: http://www.roalddahlfans.com/teachers/lamb.php

Summary of Lamb To The Slaughter

LAMB TO THE SLAUGHTER BY ROALD DAHL

Genre: Critics consider that this short story is a mix of black humor comedy and crime fiction.

Theme: Somebody committing a perfect crime. Also it shows that ANGER can reveal our true nature and DRASTIC EVENTS can provoke irregular behavior.

Plot: Mary Maloney, a housewife devoted to making a home for her husband, and heavily pregnant, waits for her husband Patrick's return home from his job as a local police detective. Mary is very happy in her marriage, and believes her husband to be happy as well. When he returns, Mary notices that he is strangely distant and assumes that he is tired from work. After having more to drink than usual, Patrick reveals to Mary what is making him act strangely. The reader is told part of their conversation, only learning that Patrick will ensure that Mary will be "looked after," but the clear implication is that he will be leaving her (and their unborn child) for another woman. Seemingly in a trance, Mary fetches a large leg of lamb from the deep-freezer in the cellar to cook for their dinner. Patrick, his back to Mary, angrily tells her not to make him any dinner, as he is going out. While he is looking out the window, quite suddenly, as if she is acting without thinking, Mary strikes Patrick in the back of the head with the frozen leg of lamb, killing him. Mary realizes that Patrick is dead and begins, rather coldly and practically, to think about what must happen now. There is the baby to consider; she does not know what the law does with a pregnant murderer; she will not risk the child's sharing her fate, which could be prison and death by hanging. She prepares the leg of lamb that she used as a weapon and places it in the oven to destroy the evidence. Then she considers an alibi. After practicing an innocent face and some remarks to make in conversation, she visits the grocer and chats blandly with him about what to make for Patrick's dinner. Upon her return to the house and to the room where her husband lies dead on the floor, she acts surprised and meaningfully cries. Then she calls the police. When the police (who are all friends of her husband) arrive, they ask Mary questions and look at the scene. Considering Mary above suspicion, the police conclude that Patrick was killed by an intruder with a large blunt object, likely made of metal. After they make a fruitless search around the house and surrounding area, Mary realizes that the leg in the oven is just about done, and offers it to the policemen, pointing out that they have already been working through and past dinner hour and that the meat will otherwise go to waste; they hesitate, but accept. During the meal, as Mary sits nearby but does not join them, the policemen discuss the murder weapon's possible location. One officer, his mouth full of meat, says it is "probably right under our very noses". Mary, overhearing, begins to giggle.

Characters: Mary Maloney is the main character of the story, a character that Dahl is extremely careful to establish in detail at the beginning of this excellent short story. Mary is clearly a devoted wife to her husband, Patrick. Dahl takes time to explain her care and love for her husband - her desire for everything to be ready for Patrick's return, her generosity (in spite of being pregnant) in serving him and so on. What this carefully constructed portrait clearly does not prepare us for,  is the situational irony that comes when Mary kills her husband, her ability to plan the "perfect murder" and also her "giggle" at the end of the story, which disturbingly suggests a darker side to human nature that is in all of us, even in the most "perfect" of people.

Patrick Maloney, Mary's husband, is a character who we are made to feel dislike for. He treats his wife with disregard, and his act of leaving Mary, who we know is devoted to him, definitely does not make him likeable to the reader, so the reader sympathizes with Mary and is secretly pleased that Mary gets away with her crime at the end of the story.

Other minor characters include the policemen who come to Mary's house to investigate the murder and are easily fooled into believing Mary's story and (a classic example of dramatic irony) eating the murder weapon, consequently ensuring Mary's freedom.

Climax: There are 2 moments of great tension and revelation to the reader. The first one is when Mary kills her husband. The reader doesn´t expect that a woman who is so much in love with her husband should unexpectedly decide to kill him. The second one is when the policemen accept Mary´s invitation to have dinner and innocently eat the murder weapon.

Symbol: The lamb, which is a biblical reference to sacrifice.

The leg of lamb shows the wife´s good intentions but becomes a murder weapon.

There´s a lot of irony in the story. We know that Mary has murdered her husband but the police don´t since they are fooled by her innocent appearance. While having dinner the policemen say that may be the weapon is under their noses.

Mary Maloney offering dinner to the police officers.

Activities of The Way Up To Heaven

These exercises were sent in by Jocelyn Allen, an Australian teaching English in Germany. They have been specially designed for non native English speakers. Thanks Jocelyn!

Vocabulary Work

1. List 10 words from the story which describe Mrs Foster as being either nervous or afraid.

2. Find one word in the story which means the same as:

a. unhappy, disappointed
b. very tired
c. find out about something
d. an odd habit or tendency
e. for a short time

Comprehension

1. Why is Mrs Foster upset with her husband at the beginning of the story?
2. How did her husband make her anxious the following morning?
3. What crucial decision did she finally make?
4. What were Mrs Foster's feelings at the end of the story?

Discussion Points

1. Was Mrs Foster right to want to live in Paris? Should husbands and wives always go away together?
2. Do you sympathise or not with Mrs Foster? Do you think she should go to prison? Do you understand why she let her husband die?

Writing

1. Write a short letter (100 words) from Mrs Foster to her daughter in Paris. Describe what happened when she returned home and describe her plans for the future.

Review

1. Is the ending to the story predictable or unpredictable? Give reasons.

Source: http://www.roalddahlfans.com/teachers/wayu.php

Summary of The Way Up To Heaven

THE WAY UP TO HEAVEN BY ROALD DAHL

Genre: The Way Up to Heaven is a macabre short story.

Theme: Some critics consider that the theme of the story is Committing a Perfect Murder.

Summary of Plot: The story is about a rich lady named Mrs. Foster, who has an "almost pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat, or even a theatre curtain". She is planning to fly to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Paris. Her husband, Mr. Eugene Foster, a retired businessman, seems to enjoy taking his time while preparing for this event, which distresses Mrs. Foster tremendously. Her husband intends to stay at a club while she is away, and their servants are given six weeks off. The next day Mrs. Foster is terrified she will be late, and expresses her worries to the butler, Walker, who assures her that she will make her flight. She arrives at the airport on time and soon finds that flights have been delayed because of bad weather. The taxi she arrived in has already left, and she continues to wait in the airport for further news concerning her trip. Finally, it is announced that her flight has been delayed until 11 am the following day. She calls her husband, returns home and spends the night there.   The following morning as Mrs. Foster prepares to take the taxi to the airport, her husband announces that he wants to be dropped off at the club on the way, which terrifies her, as the club is out-of-the-way. Before they leave, he pretends to have forgotten a present he had intended for their daughter Ellen, and to Mrs. Foster's despair he goes into the house in search of it. As she grows increasingly impatient and anxious while waiting in the car, she notices the present –a comb– hiding in the crack of the seat where her husband had been sitting and "couldn't help noticing that it was wedged down firm and deep, as though with the help of a pushing hand ". So she tells the chauffeur to go and tell him to come back. The chauffeur tries to enter and notices the door is locked. She decides to go herself, but then, having already put the key in the lock she suddenly freezes, as if listening intently. After a few seconds, she returns to the car, says there is no time, and is driven off to the airport. She makes her flight with a few minutes to spare. Things go well in Paris, and she writes to her husband each Tuesday. When she returns from Paris, she is mildly surprised to find her husband has not sent a car to meet her, but she gets into a taxi, arrives home, rings the bell but there is no answer. She sees the mail has built up behind the door and smells a peculiar odour. Noticing that the elevator is out of order, she calmly dials for a repairman and waits at her husband's desk for his arrival. The implication is that Mr. Foster was stuck in the elevator, and that despite hearing him begging for help, Mrs. Foster condemned him to death by leaving as the house was going to be unoccupied for six weeks. She could have waited or went to the house but rather she would be in time for her flight.

Character analysis: Mrs. Foster is neurotic about being on time for things. When her husband gets stuck in the elevator at their home, Mrs. Foster leaves him there while she goes on her six-week trip.

Mr. Foster likes to torment his wife by forcing her to be late. He is a cruel guy.

Climax: One of the main turning points is the moment when Mrs.Foster freezes at the front door to listen to a sound which is coming from the house. The other one is when the reader realizes that the elevator is stuck and Mr. Foster has been there for six weeks, which the reader only learns at the very end of the story (a typical device of short stories, especially those with an unexpected ending).

Symbols: The elevator, which takes Mr. Foster up, not only to the 3rd floor, but also to Heaven. Mr. Foster dies there precisely, in the elevator.

Mrs. Foster always worried about being late.