The plot of ‘The Speckled Band’ is about a woman called Helen Stoner, who goes to see Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to seek help. Her sister, Julia Stoner was killed just before here wedding, a few years back, from unknown circumstances. Helen suspects her stepfather Dr Roylott. Then Holmes finds out that in Helen’s mother’s will, it says that when one of the sisters gets married, some of the money Dr Roylott got, would go to that sister. But now Helen Stoner is getting married, and she starts to hear noises in the night, that her sister had said she’d heard the few nights before she died. Holmes and Watson set out to find out how Dr Roylott had killed Julia Stoner. They search the bedroom where it happened and find some strange things, like a bell cord that isn’t connected to a bell and a ventilator between two rooms. In the end Holmes and Watson stay in the room for the night, and in the middle of the night, the vent opens and something slides down the bell cord. They find out that it is a snake and it then turns on its owner, and Dr Roylott is killed.
The settings of each of the stories are very different. The setting of ‘The Speckled Band’ is Stoke Moran Manor; it is a typical place for a murder:
‘The building was grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high portion, and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken, and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin.’
The building is described as a dark place that is run down, but one section is slightly more modern with smoke rising from the chimney, which shows that this section of the building is the part that is inhabited.
The setting of ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ is totally the opposite; it’s a normal, clean and warm suburban home.
‘The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two lamps alight – hers and the one by the empty chair opposite.’
This normal house seems a very unlikely place for a murder in a story to happen.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ the characters are very stereotypical of murder stories, but the characters in ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ aren’t the sorts of characters you would expect to see in a murder story.
The detective/s in both of the stories act, and are different. Sherlock Holmes liked the work that he did, and didn’t just do it for the wealth. He thought himself to be cunning and clever enough to solve puzzling cases. We know these things because of Watson or Sherlock Holmes telling us in the story, for example “working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth”. In ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ there are police officers that are the detectives. There are quite a few of them and they search everywhere in the house, and only suspect Mary Maloney for a little while, but give up on here, after they learnt she went to the green grocers. So they don’t seem very clever and don’t look into details as much as Sherlock Holmes does, when looking at his cases.
The murderers in each of the stories have very different personalities and look very different. Dr Roylott the murderer in ‘The Speckled Band’, is said to be a large, mean man:
‘A huge man framed himself in the aperture. His costume was peculiar mixture of the professional and of agricultural, having a black top hat, a large frock-coat, and a pair of gaiters, with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand.’
This is the kind of character in a story that you would expect to me the murderer, because they seem evil in their description. Then there is Mary Maloney who was a middle-aged woman, who lived in a normal house:
‘Her skin – for this was his sixth month with child – had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was soft, and the eyes, with their new placid look, seemed larger, and darker than before.’
As she is pregnant you wouldn’t expect her to be the kind of person to kill her husband, and then try to cover it up.
As well as being the murderer Mary Maloney is also the damsel in distress in ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’. This is because when her husband tells her that he is leaving, she becomes very distressed and upset, but because of this distress, she ends up killing her husband. The damsel in distress in ‘The Speckled Band’ is Helen Stoner. When she enters Sherlock Holmes’s house she’s described as being frightened and grey:
‘Her features and figure were those of a women of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard.’
So Helen Stoner seems the typical damsel in distress who is looking for help with a problem she has.
The language and style in ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ have many differences.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ the sentences are very long and the paragraphs are large, but only have two to four sentences in them. The sentences also contain much more subordination for example:
“My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western boarder of Surrey.”
In ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ the sentence structure is much more simpler. The sentences are much shorter, the paragraphs are smaller and there is very little subordination, for example:
‘Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home from work.’
As well as the sentence structure of the stories, the dialogue is different. In ‘The Speckled Band’ dialogue is formal, and when the characters speak to each other they do it very politely. For example:
“Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A ventilator is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the bed dies. Does that not strike you?”
On the other hand, ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’s dialogue is much more colloquial and informal. For example:
“That’s a hell of a big club, the guy must’ve used to hit poor Patrick.”
The lexis in ‘The Speckled Band’ is very sophisticated. Lots of the sentences rely heavily of adjectives and descriptive phrases. An example of this is when Stocke Morran is described:
‘The building was grey, lichen-blotched stone, with central portion, and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side.’
The lexis in ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ is very different. Its much simpler and more direct. Also unlike ‘The Speckled Band’, the sentences are not so reliant on adjectives and detailed description. An example of this is when Mary Maloney’s husband poured a drink:
‘When he came back, she noticed that the new drink was dark amber with the quantity of whiskey in it.’
To keep the reader interested in ‘The Speckled Band’, Arthur Conan Doyle, uses lots of descriptive words. He sets the scenes by paying attention to detail like ‘lichen-blotched stone’ and describing the scene very well. The speckled band also has many “red herrings” to keep the reader from working out how the murder was done before it’s meant to be revealed. An example of a “red herring” in the story is the gypsies; they don’t have anything to do with the real plot, but are put there to through the reader off.
In ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ it’s different. Roald Dahl doesn’t use much description when telling the reader about things, his description gets right to the point. Unlike ‘The Speckled Band’, ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ doesn’t have any “red herrings” in it at all, this is because we know who the murderer is from the start, so there is no need for “red herrings”.
Both of the stories use an exotic of unusual murder weapon. In ‘The Speckled Band’ we find out that Dr Roylott used an exotic snake for the murder weapon, which is a swamp adder, which is deadliest snake in India. Another unusual weapon is the one used in ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’, in which Mary Maloney uses a frozen leg of lamb, to knock her husband round the head, and kill him.
In the end of ‘The Speckled Band’ there isn’t really a twist in the plot, because it is explained bit by bit during the story. But in ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ there is a funny and unexpected twist at the end, in which the police/detectives eat the murder weapon. (Leg of lamb)
Both the stories end in a different way. ‘The Speckled Band’ has a very final ending, where the mystery is concluded, Helen Stoner gets married, and everything is wrapped up. But in ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ the story is left open with Mary Maloney not caught by the police yet. But it is left open so the reader can come up with their own conclusion and decide what they think will happen in the end.
After looking closely at these two stories my favourite is ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ by Roald Dahl. I like it because it is quite short and to the point, unlike ‘The Speckled Band’. I also like the twist at the end of the story and I think the murder weapon is strange choice.
If I had to recommend one to someone, I would definitely say ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’.