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Nick Stephens-Domko

Mrs. Vaclavik

Advanced English II.

4 November 2010

Dramatic Irony: The Spice of Literature

Dramatic Irony occurs when the reader is aware of something that the characters

in the literature are not. In Lamb to Slaughter by Roald Dahl dramatic Irony is present

when loving housewife Mary Maloney fools police officers after killing her husband.

Dramatic Irony is also present in And of Clay Are We Created when normally drawn back

journalist Rolfe Carle suddenly becomes extraordinarily open with a small girl who was

trapped in a mud slide. Emotions have a greater pull over the human mind than one

would like to admit.

In the work Lamb to Slaughter after telling his six month pregnant wife he is

leaving her, Mr. Maloney is murdered by his wife in a psychotic break. The story goes

into great detail how she is a loving wife devoted to the comfort of her husband and

literally states “She loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man, and to feel-almost as a

sunbather feels the sun…” After a long silence her husband makes an announcement. He

tells her how he knows it’s probably a bad time to tell her this but he will also “See she is

looked after”. In utter shock and disbelief she acted as though she had heard nothing and

preceded into the basement blindly grabbed a frozen leg of lamb. Then in a fit of raw,

violent emotion she struck him over the head and killed him. Yet another example of how

strong emotion could lead a human to forget all reason and act on basic primitive urges.

Dramatic Irony is very prominent when she then practices establishing an alibi in the
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mirror “She sat down before the mirror, tidied her face… she rehearsed it several times

more… Then went out into the street.” Thus once again proving that she was aware what

she had done, although one can assume normally at receiving bad news Mrs. Maloney

would not “Kill the messenger”. She eventually in turn calls the police and over the

course of the evening she acting as though it would give her emotional relief convinces

the officers to eat the leg of lamb. Yet another example of dramatic irony is the fact that

the reader is aware the leg of lamb is the murder weapon. The police are unaware that

they’re disposing the murder weapon as shown in this quote “One of them belched.

“Personally, I think it’s right here on the premises.” “Probably right under our very

noses…” And in the other room Mary Maloney began to giggle.” The fact that she

giggled at what the officer had said also supports the theory that she has had a psychotic

break.

In And of Clay Are We Created, Rolf Carle has become detached in the many

years he has been a journalist. He had to in order to maintain his composure while at

work. In this story Rolf Carle becomes emotionally attached to a small girl trapped in the

ground up to her shoulders due to a mudslide. He started out filming her story, but

quickly began his own personal crusade for a pump to free this girl from the mud. In his

desperation to receive help to rescue the girl from the mud he had to console her and

show strength and determination to give her hope as shown in this quote “You have to

keep your strength up and everything will be fine. I’m with you and I’ll get you out

somehow.” It drained him in every sense of the word, physically, mentally, and

emotionally. Dramatic Irony is present in this work because the reader is aware that most

usually Rolf Carle is emotionally detached. He could not tell her the things that were
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present in the deepest and darkest parts of his memory. The haunting memories he had of

the war. The concentration camps, protecting his impaired sister from the merciless

beatings by his father, the wall between his emotions and the composure he managed to

keep at a disaster zone went tumbling down. “How could he tell this dying child about

the ovens and the gallows…Why should he describe to her how the naked bodies were

piled like a mountain of firewood…” He couldn’t although the walls were falling down

between all his fears and his memories he had to focus on consoling the child. It became

his purpose, his obsession.

In these two stories there is Dramatic Irony present in the emotions of the

protagonists. Their emotions overtake the reasoning of their mind and cause them to act

bizarrely one violent and primitive, the other with fear and devotion. It is a very strange

thing how emotions, something that we normally try and separate from the work place

and be so mindful of at home have such an integral role in our actions at both

environments. Emotions play a role larger than a person may want to admit.
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Works Cited

Allende, Isabel. “And of Clay Are We Created.” Elements of Literature: Fourth Course.

Compiled. Kylene Beers Lee Odell. Austin Texas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2005.

Print.

Dahl, Roald. “Lamb to the Slaughter.” Elements of Literature: Fourth Course. Compiled.

Kylene Beers Lee Odell. Austin Texas: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2005. Print.