Category: Language

Poem name: Lamb_to_the_Slaughter

The poem presented above was used as a base of my poem, it’s a story about the conflict between Mary Maloney and her husband, along with the police who try to uncover his disappearance, a conflict about man vs. man.

I tried to include this in the text where I described the fight she had with her husband, “She couldn’t feel anything at all, she simply swung the big frozen lamb high in the air, and he didn’t answer.”  “He didn’t answer” is a reference to the beginning of the text, where you are greeted with a greeting from both husband and wife — his silence representing his death from the conflict. Another conflict included in the poem is with Mary as she tries to evade the public eye and, in the end, succeeds in her goal. Saying,

“Sobbing she heard a few of the whispered phrases — “…acted quite normal… very cheerful…” followed by, “And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.”

Her happiness is due to being successful in her classification as “normal” by the detectives trying to catch the culprit.

My background shows significant relevance to the poem due to the old-fashioned comic book styles in both the lamb and the background, around the time when this story was written. Another significant asset is how the hand is holding a piece of lamb, showing reference to where Mary Maloney hits her husband with a piece of frozen lamb.