1. Picture of Roald dahl at age 17. 

Flying training at Nairobi

Portrait taken in 1954

"Lamb to the slaughter" is going to be the story I am going to read by this author.

2. Author's Biography

British writer, famous for his ingenious short stories and macabre children's books. Dahl's taste for cruelty, rudeness to adults, and the comic grotesque fascinated young readers, but upset many adult critics. Several of Dahl's stories have been made into films, including Matilda, dir. by Danny DeVito (1996).

Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, Wales, of Norwegian parents. His father, Harald Dahl, was the joint owner of a successful ship-broking business, "Aadnesen& Dahl" with another Norwegian. Before emigrating to Wales, Harald had been a farmer near Oslo. He married a young French girl named Marie in Paris; she died after giving birth to their second child. In 1911 he married Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg. Harald died when Dahl was four years old, and three weeks later his elder sister, Astri, died from appendicitis. The family had to sell their jewellery to pay for Dahl's upkeep at Repton, a private school in Derbyshire. His years at public schools in Wales and England Dahl later described without nostalgia: "I was appalled by the fact that masters and senior boys were allowed literally to wound other boys, and sometimes quite severely. I couldn't get over it. I never got over it..." (from Boy: Tales of Childhood, 1984) Dahl especially hated the matron who ruled the school dormitories. These experiences later inspired him to write stories in which children fight against cruel adults and authorities. "I have never met anybody who so persistently writes words meaning the exact opposite of what is intended," one of Dahl's English teachers commented.

"Parents and schoolteachers are the enemy," Dahl once said. "The adult is the enemy of the child because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that when it is born is an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all." In WITCHES (1973) behind the mask of a beautiful woman is an ugly witch, and in MATILDA (198 Miss Turnbull throws children out of windows. Both parents are eaten in JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1961), but the real enemies of the hero of the story, a little boy, are two aunts.

At eighteen, instead of entering university, Dahl joined an expedition to Newfoundland. Returning to England he took a job with Shell, working in London (1933-37) and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (1937-39). During World War II he served in the Royal Air Forces in Libya, Greece, and Syria. He was shot down in Libya, wounded in Syria, and then posted to Washington as an assistant air attaché to British Security (1942-43). In 1943 he was a wing commander and worked until 1945 for British Security Co-ordination in North America.

In the crash Dahl had fractured his skull, and said later: "You do get bits of magic from enormous bumps on the head." While he was recovering from his wounds, Dahl had strange dreams, which inspired his first short stories. Encouraged by C.S. Forester, Dahl wrote about his most exiting RAF adventures. The story, A Piece of Cake, was published by the Saturday Evening Post. It earned him $1,000. The same story was later included in OVER TO YOU: THE STORIES OF FLYERS AND FLYING (1946). Dahl's first children's book, THE GREMLINS (1943), about mischievous little creatures, was written for Walt Disney and became later a popular movie. His collection of short stories, SOMEONE LIKE YOU (1954), gained world success, as did its sequel, KISS KISS (1959). The two books were serialized for television in America. A number of the stories had appeared in the New Yorker. Dahl's stories were seen in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-61) and in the Tales of the Unexpected (1979) series.

In 1953 Dahl married the successful and wealthy actress Patricia Neal; they had one son and four daughters - the eldest daughter Olivia died of measles when she was eight. Dahl's wife suffered a series of brain hemorrhages at the age of 38; while pregnant with their fifth child she had a stroke. She described her recovery and her husband's solicitous help in the autobiography As I Am (198 . The marriage ended in 1983 after other family tragedies, and Dahl married Felicity Ann Crossland.

The only stageplay Dahl ever wrote, THE HONEYS, failed in New York in 1955. After showing little inclination towards children's literature, Dahl published JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH (1961). It was first published in the United States, but it took six years before Dahl found a published in Britain. James and the Giant Peach was followed by the highly popular tale CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY (1964), filmed in 1971. The story dealt with one small boy's search for the ultimate prize in fierce competition with other, highly unpleasant children, many of whom come to sticky ends as a result of their greediness. It presented the central theme in Dahl's fiction for young readers: virtue is rewarded, vice is punished. In the end the fabulous chocolate factory is given to Charlie, the kind, impoverished boy. THE WITCHES (1983) won the Whitbread Children's Book Award in 1983. The judges described the book as "deliciously disgusting". Later Felicity Dahl collected her husband's culinary "delights", such as "Bird Pie", "Hot Frogs", and "Lickable Wallpaper" in Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes (1994).

MY UNCLE OSWALD (1979) was Dahl's first full-length novel, a bizarre story of a scheme for procuring and selling the sperm of the world's most powerful and brilliant men. Dahl received three Edgar Allan Poe Awards (1954, 1959, 1980). In 1982 he won his first literary prize with THE BFG, a story about Big Friendly Giant, who kidnaps and takes a little girl to Giantland, where giants eat children. In 1983 he received World Fantasy Convention Lifetime Achievement award. Dahl died of an infection on November 23, 1990, in Oxford. Dahl's autobiographical books, BOY: TALES OF CHILDHOOD and GOING SOLO, appeared in 1984 and 1986 respectively. The success of his books resulted in the foundation of the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery in Aylesbury, not far from where he lived.

Dahl's stories have unexpected endings and strange, menacing atmospheres. The principle of "fair play" works in unconventional but unavoidable ways. Uncle Oswald, a seducer from 'The Visitor', gets seduced. In 'Parson's Pleasure' an antique dealer tastes his own medicine and the Twits from THE TWITS (1980) use glue to catch birds and meet their own gluey ends. In 'Lamb to the Slaughter' the evidence of a murder, a frozen leg of lamb, is eaten by officers who in vain search for the murder weapon. The story was inspired by a meeting with the writer Ian Fleming at a dinner party. Puns, word coinages, and neologism are more often used in the children's stories, whereas in adult fiction the emphasis is on imaginative plots. In addition to his children's books, Dahl also aroused much controversy with his politically incorrect opinions - he was accused of anti-Semitism and antifeminism and when a prowler managed to get into Queen Elizabeth's bedroom, Dahl was wrongly suspected of giving to the unwanted guest the idea in one of his books, The BFG (1982).

3. List of Major Works

Autobiographies

Boy – Tales of Childhood

Boy and Going Solo

Going Solo

The Great Mouse Plot

My Year  

Children's Books 

The BFG

The BFG, Matilda, and George's Marvelous Medicine

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator

The Compete Adventures of Charlie and Mr Willy Wonka

Danny, the Champion of the World

The Enormous Crocodile

Esio Trot

Fantastic Mr. Fox

George's Marvelous Medicine

The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

The Gremlins

James and the Giant Peach

The Magic Finger

Matilda

The Minpins

The Twits

The Vicar of Nibbleswicke

The Witches  

Novels 

My Uncle Oswald

Sometime Never  

Poetry

Dirty Beasts

Revolting Rhymes

Rhyme Stew

 Short Story Collections

5 Bestsellers

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

The Best of Roald Dahl

The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl

Completely Unexpected Tales

Further Tales of the Unexpected

The Great Automatic Grammatizator and Other Stories

Kiss Kiss

Lamb to the Slaughter and Other Stories

The Mildenhall Treasure

More Tales of the Unexpected

The Roald Dahl Omnibus

Over to You

Selected Stories of Roald Dahl

A Roald Dahl Selection: Nine Short Stories

A Second Roald Dahl Selection: Eight Short Stories

Skin and Other Stories

Someone Like You

Switch B***h

Tales of the Unexpected

Tales of the Unexpected (Volume 1)

Tales of the Unexpected (Volume 2)

Taste and Other Tales

Twenty Nine Kisses from Roald Dahl

Two Fables

The Umbrella Man and Other Stories

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More  

Miscellaneous 

Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories (editor)

The Roald Dahl Diary 1992

The Roald Dahl Diary 2000

Memories with Food at Gipsy House

Roald Dahl's Even More Revolting Recipes

Roald Dahl's Guide to Railway Safety

The Roald Dahl Quiz Book

Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes

The Roald Dahl Treasury

4. Summary of Landlady

 Billy Weaver arrives in Bath after taking the train from London. He's never been to the town before, but he has to start a new job there soon and he's excited. He goes toward The Bell and Dragon, which is a pub he's been told he could spend the night at. On the way, he notices a sign in the window of a nearby house: "BED AND BREAKFAST." Billy looks in the window and notices that it's a charming house, with a roaring fire and a little dog curled up asleep on the rug. He decides to check it out and rings the bell. It is answered immediately a little old lady who invites him to enter and tells him the room rate. As it's less than half what he was prepared to pay, Billy decides to stay. She tells him that he is the only guest as she takes him to his room. When he goes downstairs to sign the guest-book, he notices that there are only two names in the entire book. The names are over two years old... and what's more, they look to him very familiar. While he tries to remember where he could hear these names, the landlady brings him a cup of tea. He seems to remember that one of them was an Eton schoolboy that disappeared, but she assures him that her Mr. Temple was different. Billy sits down before the fire with his tea and notices a strange odor that comes from the woman, something like walnuts or new leather. They begin talking about the guests that were in this house before, and she notes that both of them were handsome young men just like him. He asks if they left recently, and she replies that both of them are still in the house on the third floor. Billy is confused and tries to change the subject by commenting on a parrot in a cage, which he thought was alive but just realized is stuffed. The landlady reveals that she herself stuffed the bird, and as she is a taxidermist she stuffs all her own pets. Billy realizes that the little dachsund by the fire isn't alive. He also notices a curious bitter almond taste in his tea, and he asks the landlady again: "Haven't there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years?" She gives him a little smile and replies, "No, my dear. Only you."

5.My Response to this story.

I liked this story from the very beginning. foreshadoving detailes were very good and let me know wjat was going to happen in a little tricky ways. The author would only give out one detail at the time. I like this kind of puzzling stuff.

6.Summary of the story I read.

A young lady(Mary Maloney) is waiting for her husband (Patrick), who is a police officer, to come back from work. Sh is 6 months pregnant and has to saty at home all day. Whenever her husband finally comes and opens the door she comes up to him and greets him, he does the same. All evening he is being quiet and not talking too much. She is asking him bunch of senseless questions, whichh seem to irritate him. He just wants to drink his whiskey. He seem to be thinking of something very important and it bothers him. She asks if he wants her to bring his slippers and cook supper if he doesn't want to go out and eat. He tells her to sit down and says that he can not stay with her anymore, he realizes that this is not a good time to brake up their relationship, but he would give her money for the baby and take care of them.

Mary didn't believe what she heard and decided to go and cook the dinner for them, may be she would wake up from this "bad dream". She goes to the frizer and gets a lamb leg out, then on the way to the kitchen, she sees Patrick staying by the window, somehow she comes up close to him and hits him in the back of his head with the lamb leg, killing him.

After she realizes what she has done, she thinks of what is in her future. She doesnt know if she is going to be executed before or after her baby is born, and how can she cover her crime. She puts the lamb leg into the oven to cook, and goes out to the store. There she acts like she is very happy and cheerful, gets food, comes back home, and finds Patrick dead on the floor. She calls cops, and acts like she is measerable. All of them are good friends of Patricks, they check her alibi and how she acted at the store.

At the end they are talking about if they find a weapon they will find a killer,and one of them was talking that this weapon probably under their very nose, but they just don't notice it at the same time eating the lamb leg that she asked them to eat for taking good care of her. At the end she is going crazy because she hears what one of the policemen says she starts giggling!

Story Response:

This story is awesome! This woman is the kind of a person that is very nice and seems to have no opinion, and she probably doesn't, but whenever someone hurts her feelings she hurts them worse (kills them). She didn't plan on it, but she thought really quickly after she had done it, how to get away with the crime.

7. Critical Analysis of additional story

The theme of this story is the effect of stressful situation upon Mary Maloney.

Point of view in this story is third person limited because we can only read mind of one person, which is Mary Maloney.

Plot of the story

a. Problem: Patrick decided to brake up their relationship because he didnt want to stay with Mary anymore.

b. Complications: Mary refuses to take this seriously, she does not believe in them living apart.

c. Climax: in shock situation as she is, she kills Patrick with the leg of the lamb.

d. Mary gets away with the murder, police officers eat the weapon which she killed Patrick with.