Whilst I was reading the two short stories, I noticed that in “Lamb to the Slaughter” a narrator was telling the story. “The Speckled Band” is being told by Dr Watson and how he feels about his companion Sherlock Homes and the cases they had tackled together as a team. Also “The Speckled Band” seems to be a typical murder mystery of the phrase “who done it?” As we do not find out who killed Helen Molony’s sister until the end of the story. Not knowing who the killer is, adds to the suspense of the story and is more interesting to read as we try to find out who the murderer is and how they killed the victim. But in “Lamb to the Slaughter” in which we already knew that Mary Molony was the one who killed her own husband as it was acted out to the reader, as the crime was committed. So the only suspense in “Lamb to the Slaughter” was if the police would be able to catch Mary and find out how she killed her husband. It was hard for the police to tackle the case as Mary and the police officers had consumed the murder weapon after she killed her husband with the frozen lamb leg, by throwing it over his head.
Both of the stories layouts are different, as in “Lamb to the Slaughter”, all the action takes place in one night. “The Speckled Band” is all set around eight years from the moment the twins mother dies, and the way it is told allows the story to go back and forth through time. The stories are different to each other as in the way they are set as in “The Speckled Band”, Helen seeks help from Sherlock Homes, but in “Lamb to the Slaughter”, and Mary Moloney decided she would call the police. So although the stories are different, one of the similarities is that it is family members who kill the victim. I think it adds more suspense to the stories, as you wouldn’t expect a member of the family to be the murderer.
There is a difference in Language between the two stories as in “The Speckled Band” the language is older and pre 20th century.
“You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog cart”
The previous quote shows that the language used in “The Speckled Band” is rarely used today, so the publishers of the book have now made a new copy explaining at the bottom of the page what a strange word means. In this case that strange word in the quote above would be “dog cart”. The Language used in “The Lamb To The Slaughter” is more modern English compared to “Te Speckled Band”. I enjoyed how in “Lamb to the Slaughter” the story is happening as you read it and makes you want to read on further.
Both murders are cleverly described in there own unique way. Roald Dahl describes Mary Malony as a loving woman, who cared and loved her husband. Mary and her husband seem to have a good life together, although it is more or less on routine.
The text from “Lamb To The Slaughter” describes how well detailed the story can be.
“When the clock said ten minutes to five, she began to listen, a few minutes later, punctually as always, she heard the tires on the gravel outside”
It is described to show how something happens every day at the same time as routine. The small passage gave me a hint that today is not is not a usual kind of day for Mary and that something is about to happen. Roald Dahl does not tell the reader what in was in particular that Patrick Malony done that would make his wife kill him. I think this added more suspense to the story, and is a clever trick which makes the reader carry on reading further. Mary killed her husband with out the reader having any idea that she was actually going to kill him, as the book does not tell us about any planning of the murder. This is different to “The Speckled Band” as the murder in it took years of planning. The planning of the murder and the attempted murder included the placing of the air vent, the fake bell and bolting down the bed to the floor. The murderer who was Dr Roylott had to teach his snake to do exactly as he wanted that day. In both murders, the murderers new what they must cover the crime up so they would not be caught by the detectives, apart from in “The Speckled Band” where the murderer was caught years after. Mary’s husband worked in the police force and so had once explained to Mary about murders. After Mary killed Patrick she new that she must obtain an alibi. She wouldn’t have thought of getting an alibi if it wasn’t for her unborn baby that she was carrying at the time.
Inside the room that Helen’s sister was murdered, they found that all the doors were locked, and all the windows were bolted shut, so the murderer must have been someone inside the building at the time. Dr Roylott killed people for money, but Mary Malony killed her husband because of anger. But when Mary killed him, she loved him as he lay dead on the floor, but Dr Roylott seemed not to care about the person he had killed, although they were related. The following passage shows how much Mary loved her husband Patrick.
“When he saw him lying there on the floor with his legs doubled up, and one arm twisted back underneath his body, it really was rather a shock. All the old love and longing for him welled up inside her, and she ran over him and began to cry her heart out.”
In “Lamb to the Slaughter” the detectives, who are the police, do not suspect Mary Malony, as they knew who she was. The detectives were also drinking whisky. There were no evidence of signs of a break in or a struggle, so the signs seemed to be pointing at Mary, but the detectives did not suspect her at all.
In “The Speckled Band” the detectives are very different in the way they investigate the murder and speak to one another.
“Probably right under her noses, what do you think Jack?”
Sherlock Holmes is put across to the reader as a very intelligent man.
“I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove”.
This is another verse by Sherlock showing us how very alert he is of his surroundings.
So over all I would say there are more differences then similarities between the two short stories. This is because the writers were different, as Roald Dahl mainly wrote children’s books, and also they were written in two different centuries. So in the end of the story, which is “The Speckled Band”, Dr Roylott is caught by Sherlock Holmes, as he does in all of his cases. In “Lamb To The Slaughter” there is a different ending as Mary Malony gets away with the murder, and that was what the reader had to wait for, to see if she was caught. I think that Mary may have got away with the murder because in that time, there weren’t many cases of women killing their husbands.
Out of both stories I seem to prefer “Lamb To The Slaughter” and found it more compelling to read because of how different it is to other murder mystery type stories. Instead of the reader waiting to see whom the murderer was, in “Lamb to the Slaughter” the reader waits to see if the murderer is caught, as we already knew who the murderer was. After reading the two stories, I can see how the style of writing murder mysteries has changed from the Victorian age, up to the 1950’s when “Lamb to the Slaughter” was written.
