Many people enjoy reading short stories because they teach us valuable lessons. The word "theme" can be defined as the main subject of discussion or idea in a work. The theme teaches us how to solve the problems and valuable lessons throughout our lives. "Lamb to the Slaughter," "The Moose and the Sparrow" and "The Dinner Party" all share a common theme which is you can't judge a book by its cover.

In "Lamb to the Slaughter" Mrs. Mary Maloney appears to be a loving, caring and perfect wife, but she was murderer of her husband, a detective. Everyday, she prepares dinner, drinks and gets slippers for her husband. When she hears shocking news from her husband, she kills him. Thus, Mrs. Maloney was a perfect wife but she kills her husband and become a perfect murderer.

In "The Moose and the Sparrow", Maddon is described as a energetic, bulky and cruel banter, but he was killed by Cecil. Cecil is describing as a slim, faint and intelligent. Maddon is always playing barbarous jokes on Cecil, so one day Cecil successfully killed Maddon. Hence, Cecil is weak and short but he uses his intelligent mind to kill Moose Maddon.

In "The dinner party", a hostess is describing as a physically powerful and intelligent woman. The cobra is crawling through her leg but she doesn't scream or change her expression at all. However, she tells the servant to put milk in a bowl on the veranda. Usually, ladies will scream and be scared when they see a cobra but here the hostess is perfect example of a brave lady. Thus, all the ladies are not same as hostess that's why we can't judge them easily.

In conclusion, you can't judge a book by its cover is only one theme but it gives us three different examples with three well known stories "Lamb to the Slaughter," "The Moose and the Sparrow" and "The Dinner Party" The theme is the main idea or main lesson from the story which gives us the true way of living a perfect life. Those three stories are giving us perfect explanation of the theme that you can't judge a book by its cove. Clearly, don't judge a person by his outer appearance.