The Found Poem displayed above is a multimedia visual representation of the underlying themes of “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl. I applied multiple forms of visual arts to create it, including the use of colored markers, colored pencils and paint markers.

“Lamb to the Slaughter” is a short story that describes how Patrick Maloney decides to leave his pregnant wife, Mary Maloney, for some unknown reason. This leads to his eventual murder and Mrs. Maloney meticulously covering up the crime and even going as far as feeding the other officers (colleagues of her late husband, who was a detective) the very leg of lamb she had used to commit the crime.

In the background, it is depicted that there is a woman smiling ominously at the reader (reference photo). The woman portrays Mary Maloney. Her eye sockets are pitch black and “empty” to represent her lack of emotion towards the death of her husband, as the eyes are commonly regarded as a great conductor of emotion. The bright crimson liquid (intended to be blood) shown to be leaking from Mrs. Maloney’s eyes represent the faked tears that she had shed over her husband’s dead body. The few splattered blood droplets upon her lips show the way she had fed the lamb to the other detectives; removing her from the suspicion list and destroying the tool used to commit the crime. In the background, right behind the illustration of Mrs. Maloney, is the lamb. This presents the events relating to the conflict, and how it was “resolved;” her deceiving outer shell veiling the death of her husband.

The lamb is drawn to be mostly black and white, just like the greater part of the rest of the drawing. Yet the leg of the lamb is colored bright red, the same color depicting the bloody substance seeping from Mrs. Maloney’s eyes and mouth. This shows that the leg was used for malicious intentions, since it is commonly regarded that red is representing a “bloody” or “bad” color. This allows the leg to stand out against the rest of the drawing and imply strongly that the leg had something to do with the murder. Through this element in my poem, it shows the conflict when Mrs. Maloney had murdered her husband.

In the original text, the underlying theme of the story are presented through Mrs. Maloney’s actions. The murder of her husband, her intent to get away with the crime. The theme revolves around betrayal and revenge, portrayed through Mr. Maloney’s betrayal and the revenge Mrs. Maloney takes on him. Underlying concepts as this that are closely intertwined with the conflict are shown through the mask she puts up, and the carefully erased evidence.

Never assume that things will be simple and transparent; more often than not, looks are the most deceiving part.

The conflict presented in the story is mostly external. This is shown through the death of Mr. Maloney, when she had brought a frozen lamb leg hard down onto his head, as presented on the seventh paragraph of the fourth page. (“At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.”) Another instance of external conflict is when she reported the murder of her husband. It was clearly difficult for her late husband’s former colleagues to manage to find what had happened to Patrick Maloney, shown on pages 8 – 9 (“The car came very quickly, and when she opened the front door…..The four men searching the rooms seemed to be growing weary, a trifle exasperated.”) A third moment of where external conflict was presented is when Mr. And Mrs. Maloney initially had their argument prior to Patrick Maloney’s death, shown on pages 2 – 3.