Final answer:
In "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "The Landlady", both by Roald Dahl, the female villains maintain a facade of normalcy to manipulate their victims. Mary Maloney murders her husband in a crime of passion, while the Landlady premeditatedly poisons and stuffs her guests. The relationships between the villains and their victims display intimate betrayal and cold calculation respectively.
Step-by-step explanation:
In both "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl and "The Landlady", female villains are central to their respective stories. In "Lamb to the Slaughter", Mary Maloney is a pregnant housewife who murders her husband with a leg of lamb after he tells her he's leaving her. She cleverly covers up her crime by cooking the murder weapon and feeds it to the detectives investigating the case, maintaining a facade of the grieving widow. Contrastingly, in "The Landlady", the eponymous character appears as a kind and hospitable owner of a bed and breakfast who poisons and stuffs her guests, treating them as pets. The relationship between Mary and her husband initially appears loving and intimate, only to swiftly become deadly. Conversely, the relationship between the landlady and her victim starts as superficial hospitality, quickly turning into something macabre.
Examining the similarities, both villains employ a facade of normalcy and charm to hide their true intentions, manipulating their victims' perceptions. The victims in both stories are unsuspecting men who fail to recognize the danger until it is too late. However, the differences are marked by the pre-existing relationship with the victim: Mary Maloney's victim is her husband, with whom she has a personal and emotional connection, whereas the landlady's victims are strangers merely looking for lodging, marking her actions as premeditated and impersonal.
Overall, the relationships in these stories highlight a contrast between the intimate betrayal in "Lamb to the Slaughter" and the cold, calculated predation in "The Landlady".