Lamb To The Slaughter Essay About Conflict

Valerie Lopez

Ms. Altamirano

English 9

7 March 2023

Conflict

“Conflict cannot survive without your participation.” Wayne Dyer. Conflict is a struggle for example an argument or disagreement. People get into arguments because of different views they have on certain things. We learn to be more open about other people's point of views. Stories have conflict to add interest and to teach a lesson. There are 7 types of conflict but the ones that are seen the most in this story are person vs self with internal conflict with themselves, person vs society with conflict with others, and person vs person with conflict vs another person. In 3 short stories, the authors use person vs self, person vs society, and person vs person conflicts to show

society conflict to show the theme to think before acting and making a reckless decision. In the short story, Lamb to the slaughter Mary Maloney kills her husband after he tells her that he's leaving her. She then proceeds to fool the police into thinking she came home to him dead and she manipulates the police into destroying the murder weapon. After her husband tells her that he's leaving her she proceeds to hit him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb. “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.” (Dahl, 4). In other words, Mary Maloney acted in the moment without thinking of her actions resulting in her hitting her husband over the head and killing him. She then fooled the police into thinking that she found him dead. This demonstrates person vs. society conflict because she fools everyone into thinking she didn't kill her husband. This shows that what the character most deeply desires is for her husband not to leave her so she killed him to protect her own image. This conflict demonstrates the theme because she impulsively reacted to the situation and proceeded to kill her husband. Ultimately, Mary Maloney made an irrational decision to kill her husband and now she has no husband which shows the theme that you should always think before

person conflict to show the theme that sometimes you don't know someone as well as you think. In the short story, Button, Button Norma is given a button to push for 50,000 dollars, but it would kill someone she didn't know. She debated whether to push it or not because she wasn't going to know the person it would kill. In the end she pushes the button and her husband is killed leaving her 50,000 dollars from his insurance policy. During a discussion Norma and Arther were arguing about pushing the button. Arthur stared at her, appalled. “You mean you would?” “Fifty thousand dollars, Arthur.” “What has the amount — ” “Fifty thousand dollars, Arthur,” Norma interrupted. “A chance to take that trip to Europe we’ve always talked about.” “Norma, no.” “A chance to buy that cottage on the island.” “Norma, no.”(Matheson 5,6). His face was white. In other words, Arthur couldn't believe that Norma would be able to kill someone for money. This demonstrates person vs. person conflict because Norma argues with Arthur and tries convincing him about pushing the button. This shows that what the character most deeply desires is to push the button and have a better life and willing to kill someone to do so. This conflict demonstrates the theme because Norma would kill someone for money and wants Arthur to agree but he doesn't. Ultimately, Norma doesn't know her husband that well because she questions why he doesn't want to