Mary Maloney Justification Essay

What is justification? What does that mean? Justification is the act of being right. In the story, Lamb to the Slaughter, written by Roald Dahl, a woman named Mary Maloney murdered her husband, Patrick, with frozen leg of lamb. This leads us to the question, “Was Mary Maloney justified in the murder of her husband?” Mary Maloney was not justified in the murder of her husband, for multiple reasons. In the following essay, it will be explained why Mary Maloney was not justified in the murder of her husband.

First thing’s first, murder is murder. On page 317 in the story, Dahl states that Mary Maloney is 6 months pregnant. No matter who you are, or what state you’re in, that doesn’t give anyone the say-so to kill somebody, let alone a police officer. Some people may say that Mary was acting on an angry impulse, due to the fact that her husband was planning on leaving her. After Mary killed her husband, Dahl stated in the story, on page 320, that she was “Cold and Surprised.” That statement shows that Mary was shocked at what she did. Also, on page 320, Mary Maloney states, “Alright… So I’ve killed him.” This statement showed that Mary didn’t really care about what she had done. The only thing Mary wanted to do, was to quickly find an alibi to keep her from getting caught. All of this illustrates that Mary Maloney wasn’t worried about the fact that she killed her husband, even though Mary was surprised at what she did.

Mary Maloney was not justified in the murder of her husband. Although Patrick was going to leave Mary, he was still going to provide for her. On page 319 of the story, Patrick tells Mary, “I’ll see you are looked after.” This statement states that Patrick was going to make sure Mary would have a roof over her head, food and other things that would be sufficient for her to live. But by killing he husband, Mary lost her source of living. Since Patrick is now gone, he won’t be able to