The Leg of Lamb/Calling Dr. Death - Reading Notes

The Leg of Lamb

 

          Roald Dahl’s short story, “The Leg of Lamb” is a mystery story that a wife murdered her husband with the big frozen leg of lamb that they would have for supper. After Mary Maloney killed her husband, Patrick, she put the frozen leg of lamb into oven and went to grocers for vegetables. She called police to report her husband’s death so whole detective crew came to her house. They couldn’t find any of heavy instruments like a large piece of metal that the murderer might use for the weapon to kill Mr. Maloney. Since it was late and all crew members were hungry, Mary offered them to eat the leg of lamb that she used as a weapon to kill her husband. Mary Maloney laughed when she heard what they’re saying, “The weapon is somewhere near the house, it’s probably right under our noses” with their mouths full of meat.

 

          This story is interesting. The author tried to show the irony that the crew couldn’t find the weapon but they were eating it right under their noses. However, the plot is not strongly supported as a mystery murder story. First of all, it didn’t show much of the background of Mary’s motivation to kill her husband. The author begins with mild, quite atmospheres, yet sensitive and high-density tensional descriptions for her mood. The reader couldn’t figure out that Mary planed for murder her husband before he arrives home or it happened by accident. Secondly, there’s not enough room to conceive about her sudden transitions. The author showed how she loved him everything on his way. But after he said something to her, she changed all of sudden and became a murderer. After she killed her husband, she worried about her unborn baby, yet quickly practiced her dialogue for grocers in order to make her alibi. And then, she laughed at no one seems to know where the weapon is. There’s not much steps for her to show drastic changes that the way from the author first described about her. Over all, I didn’t like the way the author developed on Mary's character in this story.

 

October 27, 2003
S. Rhee

 Reading 52B

  

 

Calling Dr. Death

 

          C. William Harrison’s short story, “Calling Dr. Death” is a mystery story about how a murder case was detected. From the title “Calling Dr. Death,” it gives me the idea with suspense that someone is calling Dr. Deadly.

It begins with a lot of figurative sentences of scary background that I can feel the mystery already. The metaphor sentences draw me the pictures that the main character is surrounded with dreadful darkish environments. It makes me feel that I’m in the middle of the horrible scenery, too. The simile sentences make me icy chilled with fright as if I felt just like the character had. The foreshadowing is shown in the middle of the story. When the murder is occurred, the victim whispered “Doc… my God… Doc!” and at last, “The blood-reddened fingers stopped moving… ” Dr.’s deadly frightening for murder is detected by showing himself at the very spot where the murder took place, yet no one knows about but him. This story ends with the author’s message that “You can see how this is for you. And it’ll be worse for you later.” It implies that when you do the wrong thing, no matter how you can be done perfectly without any mistake, it always comes after you. The author’s purpose is that all the expression for the fears of the main character in this story brings his blurry judgment to himself.

In conclusion, do the right thing, and then you can live with peaceful mind without any fear. I like this story because it makes me wonder all the way to end. I can’t stop reading because I can’t match all the mystery clues of this story just like a puzzle game until I reach the last parts. So I would like to recommend this story to others.

  

September 29, 2003
S. Rhee

 Reading 52B