Lamb to the Slaughter

1. What evidence is there in the beginning of the story that Mary Maloney has created a peaceful, homely environment inside the house?

She cleaned the house and prepared drinks for her husband. 

 2. What evidence is there that she cares deeply about her husband?

She talks about how she loves him so dearly and compared him to the sun while she’s sunbathing.

3. Find the imperatives that Mr Maloney uses on P2. What do these show about his state of mind?

He tells her to sit down multiple times because he doesn’t want her to get him anything because he’s about to have a conversation with her.

4. Why do you think the exact words Patrick uses to tell Mary he is leaving are not included in the story? What impact does this have on the story. 

It adds something that the reader can infer and think about and it changes the way you think about the character. We don’t know much about Patrick and by not telling us how he says us makes us know less.

5. Why do you think Mary hit Patrick on the head with the leg of lamb?

She was extremely angry and her life was pretty much done for. Widowed woman and children without dads were not seen well back in that day. She didn’t know what would happen she just did it.

6. Why does Mary go to the shop? What do you think of this as a decision? 

She wanted to get food for dinner and act like when she got back he was dead and she hadn’t seen or done anything.

7. In what way does Mary surprise the reader in the second half of the story? (an insightful response will refer to the specific ways in which she manipulates other characters).

She completely changes person, she loved Patrick dearly and then she turned into a murderer that covered their trails.

8. What is ironic about the comment made by Jack Noonan ‘it’s the old story, get the weapon and you’ve got the man’?

Because the murder weapon was eaten a few minutes later and it had been right in front of their nose.

9.Every word counts in a short story – so the title of the story is usually significant. Comment on the effectiveness of the title ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’

Lamb to the slaughter is a quote meaning a kamikaze or, someone put in a position where they can’t help dying. Patrick dies too a part of a lamb so its just an ironic saying.

10. Is Mary a hero or a villain? Justify your answer. 

Murderer. Villain. Only feminists would say she’s a hero. It was murder, no matter what he did its still a crime.

3.

Mary Maloney waited anxiously as the detective took the lamb out of the oven. She watched as his eyebrows frowned as he inspected the meat. He set it down on the kitchen surface instead of the table and sliced the corner off the lamb off the bone. He inspected the lamb once again and asked his question. “Say, Mrs Maloney; did you buy this meat today?”. “No detective, I took it out the freezer and defrosted it earlier today” she responded “Is something the matter with it?”. Jack raised an eyebrow and Mary’s stomach flipped a little. The detectives cuffs clinked together by his belt. He stood up and briskly walked over to Mary. The butterflies began to flutter in her stomach. Jack grabbed her arms and cuffed her while repeating the words Mary had been anxious about. The other policemen watched in confusion until one of them spoke up. “But Sir, you can’t arrest her with no evidence”. But Jack Noonan had plenty evidence, he had the murder weapon sitting on the counter, because you see, Jack knew about meat. He knew that when meat was defrosted it would cook as per normal, but meat that isn’t defrosted has extra moisture after being cooked, due to not being thawed. And a specific spot in the lamb where the meat was slightly deformed, where it had hit something while still frozen.

Hey everyone that reads this blog. Tonight I am staying at a weird bed a breakfast. The last people that checked in were multiple years ago and their names sound familiar. This place is a bit creepy, the old lady is almost too nice and has a way of silently staring at you. She stuffs her old pets. and makes them look real. I’m starting to get a little worried, there are no other consumers here and something about this place seems off. I’ll write the rest of this post, in the morning; if i make it.

Billy waited in suspense for the old lady to say anything more. She sat there sipping her tea and staring at him over her tea cup. “Where can I find the others?” Billy asked the grandma. She responded in her calm old cracked voice, “don’t worry sweetie, you will see them soon enough.” A shiver went down Billy’s spine and his hands started trembling. The teaspoon from his tea cup fell down onto the floor. As he bent down to pick it up his perception of distance started changing. A psychedelic type hallucination, he looked down at his hands and saw multiple versions of them. “What have you done to me?” Billy puzzled trying to keep thinking. A bright white light was entering his eyes and he felt his consciousness slipping away. He concentrated on a certain point of the fireplace and tried to remain calm. He watched the fire slowly turn from red, orange to a bright migraine white. His brain and consciousness fell into a deep sleep but his eyes remained open, sprawled on the sofa entering an endless sleep.

Describe how techniques have been used in the text

Ballad of Birmingham is a poem about a young girl and her mother. It is written by Dudley Randall and he uses description, similes and metaphors and dialogue to add effect in the text. The little girl asks her mother if she can go protest with other young kids. The mother is worried about her young child and asks her to go to church instead where it is pure. A while later the mother hears an explosion and runs to the church to find it in rubble.

In the poem Randall uses description to show more detail and create a better visual image in the reader’s head. In the second stanza the child asks her mother to go protest with other kids. In response her mother says “No, baby, no, you may not go, for the dogs are fierce and wild”. When she says this she doesn’t just mean the dogs, she’s talking about how unsafe it is. “No, baby, no, you may not go, for I fear those guns may fire”. In this line she directly tells her child that she’s worried about what could happen to her child. This is used to show the child was too young to understand what their mother was saying unless told directly. This helps us understand how young this child really is.

In the poem Randall uses similes and metaphors to empower statements with meanings they didn’t have before. “And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands, and white shoes on her feet”. When Randall uses this metaphor he means to create a deeper meaning. In this instance the church is a very pure, untouched place and a safe place for a child. To say the child was drawing on the clothes, when in reality they would be putting them on is showing us how young the child is. Children love to draw and using drawing in this metaphor helps us get an understanding of  how young the kid is. In current day church is viewed differently. It’s a ceremony where adults and children praise or talk to their gods. In the poem church is seen as a place for children to go and sing in the choir.

In the poem Randall uses dialogue to help us learn more about the two characters. The first few stanzas use only dialogue of the child and parents talking. Through this we can find out what type of character they are. For example, when the child speaks they start their sentence with “Mother dear,”. We learn from this more about the kids’ background. They sound polite, brought up with wealth, quite young. When the mother addresses the child back, she says “No, baby, no”. She’s addressing the child as a baby, so we can interpret that the kid is indeed young. Most families in real life have a different way of addressing each other and you can find out about someone by how they speak to their parents. 

Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall is a poem where he uses description, similes and metaphors and dialogue to add effects that help bring the text together. He uses description to add my detail to a sentence and gives the reader a better understanding. Ballard also adds similes and metaphors to add a deeper meaning behind a sentence that we understand through comprehending the text. Dialogue is used effectively to add more detail to parts of the poem, and to show us more traits of a character. The march in real life was done on May 2nd 1963 and multiple children died that day.

2. Still I Rise is a poem by Maya Angelo about the past and standing up for what’s right. She wrote it to influence people.

1. In the poem she talks about slavery  and how everybody wants to bring her down. It is a very confronting speech about racism and sexism.

4. Maya Angelo uses lots of similes and metaphors in this poem. One of such is”I am a black ocean”. She uses this metaphor to give her the power of a stormy strong ocean with waves crashing down on the rocks. Another one is “I dance like I’ve got diamonds at the meeting of my thighs”. This is briefly going over sexism and her being rich. Another metaphor is  “I am the dream and the hope of the slaves”. In this she talks about how all the slave’s dream to be free and she’s helping them with her speeches.

3. When Maya Angelo finishes the poem she repeats “I rise” five times to emphasise. The phrase is used to show that it is her standing up and saying something that had to be said.The repetition really locks her words in and makes you remember the poem.

1. The poem Ballad of Birmingham is about african american kids that got blown up at a church. Four young african americans are attending church and a bomb goes off blowing them up.
2. “She has combed and brushed her dark-night hair”
3. The girl is very sweet and innocent. She wants to go and help the protestors at such a young age and asks her mother so politely. An example of this is how she says “Mother dear,” when she asks to go downtown to protest.

The fantail glided through, swerving in and out of the trees, goal in sight. It liked to follow the humans walking along the trail, up until where the forest breaks out into the harsh windy grass lands. Every-time you went up to the top of the hill, on the way back it would be there. The same one? Who knows. But it never disappointed.

I remember back when I was younger, we lived on the inner side of an extinct volcano, Governors Bay. There was a cafe on top of the hill, it was damaged in the earthquakes, but I believe it is not repaired. We would walk up to the top of the hills, and sit down in the cafe. You would have a view over the entirety of Christchurch. Machines operated on the other side of the hill, tearing down all the trees. They were making space for a bike park. The walk itself was steep, well thats what I remember from the past but everything seems steep when your little.

The track itself was covered in roots, surrounded by beautiful trees. It was cool in the shade, the air was pure and untouched by pollution. We used to go up there after school, in the weekends, holidays. It was full of nature, animals, berry bushes and the fantail. He would follow us home, it seemed like almost every time we went up to the top of the port hills he would follow us back. Sometimes it would build up confidence and get a bit closer. If you stopped for a break it would come and perch on a rock a few metres away from you. Its tail was the brightest white. The bird itself wasn’t very big, but it was super friendly. Sometimes we would feed it the crusts of our sandwich.

3 Years later, on a returning trip to Christchurch, Indy and I, we had hiked up to the top of the port hills and viewed all the changes, the bike park had completely teared down half the forest, destroying the home to the fantails. The cafe rebuilt and pollution covered the forest. Private tracks had been released to the public, coffee cups, wrappers and boxes of sorts covered the forest. As we got deeper into the forest it was worse. The once clean air had been corrupted. We had walked down the hill that day, and the fantail wasn’t to be seen.

As I sat on the boat the waves lapped over. All the other men and young males were setting the gloom. Nobody wanted to be here, nobody wanted to be at the next stop either. I wish I could go back to the good old days, sitting at my desk, a humble accountant.

My family were nervous when the letter came. It was not a good time period to get unknown letters in the mail. They were upset for me to leave, but they thought I was coming back. That wasn’t happening and I knew it. I was being shipped off to my death, bound for europe.

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As I sat in the trench eating the canned “meat” I thought about the past. The old things I never payed attention too, the things I didn’t appreciate. At that time seemed like luxury. The ones in power didn’t care enough to send out proper food, the meat was 90% plastic and smelt like a sewer. I begrudging went over to bathroom facilities in the trench, we had dug a hole at the far end of the trench and placed a wooden barricade over the pit when nobody was there so the smell wouldn’t waft. I hope we get out of the trenches soon, we have been camped up here for too long.

The condensation on the windowsills dropped down onto the ground. The early morning chill flew through the house, courtesy to the open window in the bathroom. The tractors windshield was frozen over, a splash of water wouldn’t be suffice. The ground complained as I trampled over the grass, the tips hard with frost. Last seasons produce lay dead, lifeless in the field. The animals would have to carry the harsh environment on their shoulders.

Turn each simple sentence below into a compound sentence.
1 We ate lunch and then went for a swim
2 The rocket flew high, so high that it hit a satellite
3 Emily sang a song but she sounded horrible
4 The goldfish swims in the pond and likes to eat broccoli
5 The party was fun but someone peed on the mat
6 On Wednesday Peter put his hand up in class but he never answers
7 Bert likes fruit for breakfast so he eats mango for lunch.
8 What is your favourite colour and your favourite pillow.