“Lamb to the slaughter” by Ronald Dahl

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"Lamb to the slaughter" by Roald Dahl is an very gripping short story combining situational irony with humor. The author captured my attention with the tricky antics that the main character engages in to prevent her incarceration.

Roald Dahl was born and raised in Llandaff, south Wales on September 13, 1916 to two Norwegian parents who loved him greatly. When he was three years old both his father and eldest sister astir died, the cause of death is unclear. His mother Sofie was left a widow to raise four children, Roald and his three sisters. In his life Roald made many references to his mother, he considered his mother an rock hard person who he could always count on. In Roalds book "The Witches" he based the main character on his mother, which he missed dearly.

Dating back to Roalds bed time he could remember when his mother would read him stories about monsters, and other mythical creatures.

His mother was a great teller of stories and seemed to always be able to comfort him. Roalds father on the other hand was a very descriptive person and while in war wrote about three pages a day in his diary, which may have led to Roald being keeping such a descriptive diary of his own.

Every since Roald started to attend school he had a hassle getting by, he attended the local school in his home town called the Llandaff Cathedral School. to ease his sorrow he would stop at the sweet shop after school, which then started the roots of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Roald would linger outside of the store and gather thoughts of how gobstoppers change colors and how was liquorices made, his favorite was the sherbet suckers which where tubes filled with sherbet powder. Each day he would indulge himself with glasses of sherbet drinks.

In 1925 Roald began a life at St. Peters prep school, which is just the thing young Roald needed in his life. At this school he was hassled by a various different teachers which not surprisingly triggered him to start writing home once a week to help calm the homesickness that bothered him so, he would continue to write home till he received no reply.

When Roald Dahl turned 18 he chose not to go to a university but found a program which would push him in the right direction. He began work for shell as a salesman. Roald continued to work this job until war broke out and he was called into action as a birdplane Gladiator Fighter. He was on his way to join the rest of his team in Libya but crashed on the way, Roald sustained injuries that had his nose pulled out of place and other life threatening injuries. After his recovery he was then stationed in Washington as an air attaché. It was this time in his where he would meet a very important writer who would change Roald Dahl's life forever, and would start him on a career of new found literature.

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