Consider the conventions of murder mystery and examine the uses that Conan Doyle and Roald Dahl has made of them

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Dhruv Mittal        10R        Miss Strickland

Consider the conventions of murder mystery and examine the uses that Conan Doyle and Roald Dahl has made of them

Both stories start in a warm, comfortable atmosphere.  Neither of them start with the murder. Both murders have very different circumstances and are written in contrasting ways.  In the beginning of ‘The Speckled Band’ Dr Watson introduces himself, Sherlock Holmes and the case of The Speckled Band.  Conan Doyle doesn’t start the beginning of the story with a mysterious setting so this misleads the reader into thinking that it might not be a detective story. This device is called a red herring. Conan Doyle doesn’t reveal anything so that the reader can guess what happens next.

In the beginning of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ Roald Dahl starts off with a warm, clean, cosy, comfy and homely setting which contrasts the convention of murder mystery of mysterious, dark and sinister atmosphere.

Both stores have detectives but they are both very different.  In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the detectives are not as you would expect, they don’t suspect anyone even until the end.  They are not very good at their job as they spend most of their time sympathising with Mrs Maloney.  Whereas in ‘The Speckled Band’ the detectives are as expected, they are very good at it, they follow all the clues and they love their job.  They do their job very well as they think quickly; have good ideas and good observation.  They find the speckled band at the end and so solve the mystery whereas in ‘lamb to the slaughter’ the detectives leave a loose end as they don’t know who committed the murder so they don’t solve the mystery.  In ‘the speckled band’ we know that Holmes is a great detective by the way that Watson describes him and his actions when he says ‘I had no keener pleasure…….the problems submitted to him’ on the first page.  Whereas on the other hand Dahl doesn’t depict the detectives very well as we only know briefly of them and their actions. They seem professional in what they do because when it says ‘the detectives kept asking her a lot of questions’ but in a way they don’t seem professional when we know that they don’t find who did the murder or to what did the murder.  The only clues they found was that Mr Maloney was hit by something very hard, something which looked like a heavy metal instrument ,I know this from when Jack Noonan said ‘her husband he told her….on the premises’ on the 5th page.  Conan Doyle shows that Holmes is a great detective as he is depicted very well and he picks up many clues and looks very closely at everything.  He takes very careful notes from Helen stoner when she is telling her about her sister as when he says ‘pray be precise as to details’.  He finds that Dr Roylott is a very bad-tempered person and he wonders to whether Dr Roylott could have any association to the murder or Mrs Helen stoner.  He goes to Miss Stoner’s house and finds many unusual clues that may or may not help him in the future. The clues he finds are; a bed clamped to the floor, a ventilator that doesn’t ventilate but links Dr Roylott’s room to Miss Stoner’s room.  He finds a dog lead that has a small loop not big enough for a dog and a safe in Dr Roylott’s room.  He also finds a small shed far away from the house from where you can see the window of the room of where the murder took place.

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There is a presentation of evil in both stories but in ‘lamb to the slaughter’ there is a lot and is quite obvious.  There are evil intentions right from the beginning as when it says ‘the eyes…seemed larger and darker than before’ this shows that she has some evil intentions from the start.  When it says her eyes seemed larger, this shows that she is more awake, more aware, and more conscious.  Her eyes seemed darker than before, this shows that she has something on her mind, something bad, evil and something that is troubling her.  It is as if ...

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