1. LAMB TO THE
SLAUGHTER

2. Character
 Mary Maloney
- 6 months pregnant
- Kind
- She is happy with her life and marriage
- Devoted wife
- Suffers a state of shock, anger and rage due
to her husband‘s unexplained decision, that
she kills him.

3.  She can be recognized as the typical
housewife, she's intelligent, bright, has a clean
and well organized home, loves her husband
over everything on earth

4.  As we first meet Mrs. Maloney we are drawn
into a perfect environment.
 She's situated in their living room, sewing
something, most likely for her coming baby, we
hear about the sideboard behind her, the two
tall glasses, soda water, whisky and fresh ice
cubes. She is being described as beautiful, soft
skin and lips and dark and large eyes, patiently
waiting for the love of her life, her husband
Patrick.

5.  She loves Patrick for everything he is, even for
the way he sits loosely in the chair. She
regards Patrick as a wonderful being.
 She changes completely to the fact that she
killed her husband. Although she pretends not
to hear nothing from him, but she is actually in
the state of shock that she loses her sense and
kills him.

6.  Very tricky and intelligent
- Pretends as if nothing happens and plans
everything perfectly.
- She cooks the lamb leg so that no one knows
that it is the murder weapon.
- She even persuades the police and the
detectives to eat the ―murder weapon‖,
diminishing it at the same time.
- She gets it done all by those people.

7.  Patrick Maloney
- We haven't really gotten to know Patrick yet,
that is why our first impression of him is not a
mix of tired husband and rejecting husband
- He drinks (uses alcohol to muffle his
frustration)
- It is when he gets another stronger drink that
we sense something is wrong with him.
 Resentful – gets angry for his wife being so
nice to him, and yet he keeps on refusing her
offer.

8.  We do not know what actually he tells his wife.
But it must be something terrible for her that he
got himself killed.

9. TELL-TALE HEART

10. Characters
 The narrator ( a male )
- He recounts his murder of an old man.
- Since he tells the story in first-person, the
reader cannot determine how much of what he
says is true; thus, he is an unreliable narrator.
- Though he repeatedly states that he is sane,
the reader suspects otherwise from his bizarre
reasoning, behavior, and speech.

11.  He speaks with trepidation from the famous
first line of the story: ‗‗True—nervous—very,
very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but
why will you say that I am mad?'‗
 He's nervous ("very dreadfully nervous"),
paranoid, and physically and mentally ill.
 He doesn't know the difference between the
"real" and the "unreal," and seems to be
completely alone and friendless in the world.

12.  He is also a murderer.
 This explains why he doesn't share his name,
or any other identifying characteristics.
 He wants us to know what he did, but not
where to find him.
 There could be a possibility that the narrator is
a woman. However, there‘s a line in the short
stories, telling us that he is a man.
 "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing"

13.  The narrator performs a man's chore by
bringing four chairs into the old man's
bedroom, one for the narrator and three for the
policemen.
 If the narrator were a woman, the policemen
probably would have fetched the chairs. But
they did not.

14.  The narrator is insane.
- He claims to be perfectly sane, but then, he
says that it‘s the old man‘s eye that provokes
him to commit the murder. No sane person
would do that.

15.  The Old Man
 The old man is even more of a mystery than
the narrator, partly because we only see him
through the narrator's perspective.
 We know he has money (the narrator shows
the old man's "treasures" to the police).
 We also know he has a blue eye that the
narrator is afraid of, and which fits the
description of a corneal ulcer.
 We also know he's old, and that he's a fairly
sound sleeper

16.  According to the narrator, the old man suspects
nothing because the narrator is nice to him,
showing that he trusts the man.
 We can't prove the old man wasn't suspicious,
but because he leaves his bedroom door
unlocked we can assume it.
 We know the man isn't naturally trusting – he's
afraid of robbers.
 But, it seems he does trust the narrator enough
to give him the run of the house while he
sleeps.

17.  Alienated
 We know that at least one neighbor is
suspicious of the goings on in the house of the
old man and the narrator.
 Otherwise, he or she would not have been so
quick to call the cops after hearing a little
scream, and wouldn't have been able to
convince the powers that be to send not one or
two, but three policemen.
 We don't know if this suspicion is directed
toward the old man or toward the narrator or
both. But, it's possible that the narrator wasn't
the only one afraid of the old man's eye.

18.  The old man could be an alienated figure both
in and out of the home, and thus the narrator's
murder of him could be symbolic of prejudices
and abuses that stem from physical
"difference."

19. References
 http://www.shmoop.com
 http://www.enotes.com
 www.bookrags.com
 www.sparknotes.com