Mind you, she wasn't expecting to find anything. She was just going home with the vegetables.
The story "Lamb to the Slaughter" shows a wife killing her husband in cold blood and then in an equal cold manner devising a plan to get away with it. The lack of remorse and intricacy of her plan, and finally the giggle after making the policemen eat the murder weapon shows a complete contrast to the start of the story, where the writer wanted to portray an innocent wife lovingly waiting for her husband, and is a portrayal of complete psychopathy.
You can kick out a dangerous thought, you know, if you put another in its place.
"The Soldier" is a story with the main theme of PTSD, where the main character is presumably a returned soldier, who can't focus his thought and has a complete mental breakdown. He can't feel anything, can't feel the pain and has to remind himself to think positive thoughts, think of the happy memories. His monologue allows the reader to really see the deterioration of his mind and of the world breaking around him.
At least half the faces I pass on this little walk are now familiar to me.
Perkins from the story "Galloping Foxley" is clearly a man who loves his security, comfort of familiarity and routine. The reason why he is so obsessed with this routine of his is revealed in a new face disturbing the routine in his train travel. This man brings distant memories which reveal that Perkins carries a large scar from his youth, which could be said to have shaped his need for safety. In his reluctance to approach the man, whom he is confident is his abuser, shows that he still carries the pain with him.
...I can feel my own hand creeping closer and closer to that golden contract that lies over on the other side of the desk.
At the end of the story "The Great Automatic Grammatizator" where the main characters design a machine that writes perfect literary works, the author lets his voice slip in to comment on the struggle and uncertainty of being a writer, and the narrator himself would like to have his books written perfectly for him.
