In the short story, ''Lamb to the Slaughter,'' by Roald Dahl, the author uses literary devices such as irony, dark humor, and foreshadowing to make something tragic become humorous, in an interesting way. This short story consists of a loyal, loving wife and her brutal actions after receiving shocking news from her husband. She murders a beloved man and covers up all evidence without leaving a single trace. These literary devices are what makes ''The Lamb to the Slaughter'' a whole story. ''Lamb to the Slaughter'' is about a pregnant woman named Mary who murders her husband, Patrick, with a leg of frozen lamb and feeds the evidence to the police officers. The uses of irony is very important to the story because it makes the plot more interesting and enjoyable. In the beginning, Mary was sweet and loving, everything a husband could ever want as a wife but she received terrible news and raged with anger. A type of irony is situational irony, which is the difference between what we think will happen and what really occurs. Even though Mary looked calm she was furious inside and killed him with a frozen leg of lamb. Another irony is dramatic which we know what will happen in the story but the character doesn’t know. An example is when the police officers think Mary wants them to eat the lamb to show etiquette hostility but in reality she just wants to get rid of the murder weapon. All in all, she cooked the weapon, fed it to the police officers, and left no trace of the delinquent leading to a perfect crime. In this short story, Mary was kind and sweet to her husband, by the end she kills her own husband. While responding to the grocers she says, ''I've got a nice leg of lamb'', (Dahl, 4) this response is related to dark humor, due to her husband's conditions. Mary is simply setting up her crime scene so she won't get caught. This quote is dark humor because Mary doesn’t really need anything from the store. Also her husband is lying