In the two short stories, Lamb to the Slaughter and The Landlady by Roald Dahl, an
important message is be careful who you trust. This is important because it teaches us
that even the people closest to us can betray us.
The Landlady is a story about a young man who thinks that he has found a safe place to
stay but is betrayed by the Landlady. The author shows the massage through techniques
such as imagery, adjectives and short sentences.
The message „be careful who you trust‟ is shown in The Landlady when Billy first sees
the Bed And Breakfast that the Landlady owns. He judges the owner of the
establishment, based on what he can see of the façade of the building. The imagery
used, describes a respectable business, with its “brightly burning fire” and “a pretty little
dachshund that was curled up asleep”. This description provides the reader with the
idea, which contrary to the “images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a
powerful smell of kippers”, conjured up by Billy‟s imagination – the bed and breakfast is
an establishment with an air of refinement, honesty and safety. This is important to the
message of „be careful who you trust‟ because it shows Billy forming an opinion of the
business and its owner which he is incapable of changing until it is too late. The adjective
used in the short text form a description of a “harmless”, if “slightly dotty” old woman.
Because of the likeness to a friendly, familiar and trusted person, Billy makes the
mistake of assuming that the Landlady will be the same as “the mother of one‟s best
school friend”. In particular he notices her “small, white quickly moving hands, and red
fingernails”, which we later find have performed taxidermy on countless others including
the dachshund and a budgie. The short sentences in The Landlady are definites, showing
absolute conviction when used in direst speech, and leaving nothing to the imagination.
All of the techniques have been used to show that Billy is judging the Landlady on her
appearance alone. Roald Dahl wants us to be aware that our first impressions of people
can be false. Dahl provides clues as to the ending of the short text, but never definitively
explains what happens to Billy. One such clue is that “the tea tasted of bitter almonds”.
This suggests that he was poisoned by the Landlady, as arsenic is said to taste of bitter
almonds. Another clue comes in the form of the entries to her guest book, of which there
are only two. Dahl insinuates that they both suddenly disappeared. Billy comes close to
making this connection but is put off by something that the Landlady says. Later she
remarks that Mr Mulholland “never left”. She goes on to say “Mr Temple is also here.
They‟re on the third floor, both of them together.” This hints at something sinister and is
important to the message because it shows that Billy‟s first impression of the Landlady is
so strong that he finds id impossible to change. The person he perceives her to be would
not betray him.
The short story Lamb to the Slaughter is about a young woman named Mary Maloney
who is betrayed by her husband and betrays him in kind. Techniques such as descriptive
language, direct speech and internal monologue are used to show the message.
In the short story Lamb to the Slaughter descriptive language is used to show the
message of “be careful who you trust” by painting a picture of Mary that shows her as a
harmless individual. As Mary was pregnant -in her “sixth month with child”- the reader is
led to believe that she is incapable of extreme violence. The author even goes so far as
to say that “her skin...had acquired a translucent quality”, giving an air of fragility to
Mary. The reader is led to believe that Mary is a calm serene character, which she
appears to be- at the beginning of the story. She even takes the news of her husband‟s
betrayal calmly. Mary stays without interrupting, sitting “very still through it all”, even
though she can feel him moving “further and further away from her with each word”. A
second technique used by Roald Dahl is direct speech. In Lamb to the Slaughter direct
speech is frequently used to show depth of emotion and to move the story along. The
author reveals Patrick Maloney‟s feelings for his soon-to-be ex-wife when he says that
“there needn‟t really be any fuss” involved in the split, giving the reason that “it wouldn‟t
really be any good for my (Patrick‟s) job” as a police officer. This callous and unfeeling
remark shows that even though Mary obviously dotes on her husband very much,
offering to fetch his slippers, pour his drinks and cook his meals, Patrick doesn‟t
reciprocate the feeling. It is also used to show the opinions of the police officers who
investigate Patrick Maloney‟s death. One of the officers is sent to interview the grocer
whom Mary visits after Patrick‟s and uses as her alibi. He returns and in his report
remarks to the senior investigator at the scene that she had “acted quite normal” and
was “very cheerful”. This shows that he believes it “impossible” that she committed the
heinous deed. Another technique that Dahl uses is internal monologue. This technique,
coupled with the writing style of the omniscient narrator, shows the reader what Mary is
thinking and how she reacts when she realises that she has brutally attacked and killed
her beloved husband with the frozen leg of lamb that was to be his dinner. Mary‟s
thoughts are for the child that she is carrying. She knows “as the wife of a detective...
what the penalty would be” and wonders “what the laws were about murderers with
unborn children”. She speculates that they might kill her child and decided that she is
unwilling to take that chance. The use of internal monologue allows the reader to know
all of this. It also shows that up until the moment when Patrick unfeelingly declares that
he is “going out” Mary had no intention of hurting him. This is linked to the idea of „be
careful who you trust‟ because Mary trusted her husband and he betrayed that trust. It
is further shown when Mary kills Patrick because although he is leaving her, Patrick still
trusts Mary enough to have his back to her, even after seeing the state of shock that she
is in at hearing the news.
There are many similarities between the two short stories Lamb to the Slaughter and
The Landlady. One such instance is in the way that people perceive the women in the
stories. Both the Landlady and Mary Maloney are seen as physically fragile and incapable
of the acts that they commit. In both stories it is the men who continuously
underestimate them, Billy in The Landlady and not only Patrick in Lamb to the Slaughter,
but the police officers as well. In both stories Roald Dahl hints, but gives no definite
endings. The police appear to have removed Mary from the suspect list but the story
ends before the reader finds out whether or not she is arrested and charged for her
crime. The Landlady seems to have poisoned Billy with the tea that tasted of “bitter
almonds” (cyanide is said to taste of bitter almonds) but the reader never finds out if
Billy dies and has taxidermy performed on him or if he survives and is able to escape.
The women in both stories have an unhealthy obsession with keeping their loved ones
with them. Mary does not wish to kill anyone until her husband announces that he is
“going out”, presumably to meet with the woman that he is leaving Mary for. It is almost
as though if Mary cannot have him she can‟t stand for anyone else to. The Landlady has
a set victim profile; men of about seventeen with dark hair and clear skin. It is possible
that the Landlady was left by someone that she trusted who fit this description. Another
possibility is that one of her loved ones dies and she felt as though she had been
betrayed by this person (betrayed in that he has died and left her behind), which has
caused her to feel that given the chance she will be betrayed in this manner time and
time again. Because of this she has resorted to preserving “all of my (her) little pets”
when they die. In the sitting room on the ground floor she keeps a “pretty little
dachshund” and “a large parrot” which she preserved herself. There are a number of
differences between the two stories. Mary is a young woman, pregnant and married. The
Landlady is described as “slightly dotty” and an elderly lady. Mary doesn‟t seem to have
a job of any sorts, whereas the Landlady provides the façade of owning a successful
business. The Landlady also appears to be a serial killer, having two previous victims-
Christopher Mulholland and Gregory W. Temple. Mary has only killed one person. The
Landlady is the only one of the two women to have premeditated the murder of her
victim. She has planned the death of Billy in exquisite detail, ensuring that she has all
that she needs readily available. It would seem that she has used the same method on
her other two victims as well. Mary on the other hand, kills her husband in what is an
impulsive action.
In conclusion the message of „be careful who you trust‟ is shown through a variety of
techniques that the author has used to demonstrate that even the people closest to us
can betray us. It shows that we need to be aware of this in our day to day lives and
know that the threat of betrayal can come from anyone, even the least threatening of
people.