Black humour

     Black humour – humour (jokes or funny stories) dealing with the unpleasant side of human life.  

I think Lamb to the Slaughter is a brilliant example of the genre of black humour. And R.Dahl is a great master of black humour of the most sophisticated kind which is fully revealed in his other   macabre, sinister but at the same time entertaining and unforgettable stories.

The story Lamb to the Slaughter comes from the collection Tales of the Unexpected  and  is considered one of Dahl's most famous stories.

It is  a tale about a wife of a police detective who kills her husband in a most unconventional way and then disposes of the murder weapon in a manner that would make any criminal proud.  

I think, Dahl has an uncanny talent for writing about the worst in people, but  he still seems to love his bizarre characters. Mary Maloney committed a heinous crime but we are ready to forgive her. After all, her selfish, merciless husband deserves a punishment. Mary Maloney is a charming wife treating her husband with loving care and affection. But he brutally breaks terrible news to her that he is going to abandon her. He does not care a straw that she is in her sixth month with child.

Dahl’s stories have elements of the macabre and the grotesque, though the settings, he chooses, are quite ordinary:  comfortable tidy houses, quiet atmosphere, seemingly loving married couples and so on.

Dahl easily makes the macabre laughable. Though he sometimes describes hideous crimes, he is not trying to scare the reader.  

In conclusion, I think that it is very useful to include black humor in stories. Because it makes stories more exciting and unpredictable. Also, black humor helps to discharge a situation. But of course, this humor must be without harm and malice.