Detective Fiction comparison 'Lamb to the Slaughter' & 'The Red Headed League'.

Livia Antolik Y10.3 25/10/03

Detective Fiction

‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ & ‘The Red Headed League’

In this essay I am going to analyze two short stories, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ by Roald Dahl and ‘The Red Headed League’ by Arthur Conan Doyle, and examine how they fall into the detective genre. Detective fiction can be qualified in several ways and can be seen in many diverse angles. What are our expectations of detective fiction? What do we look for when we read detective fiction? We usually expect crime, suspense, mystery, puzzles and a few twists. Readers also appreciate when they can do their own bit of uncovering and get involved in the story. Not all stories offer that possibility to readers, so in this essay I am going to try and find out the differences between ‘L. to the S.’ and ‘The RHL’ and see if and why we can classify them as detective stories.

Roald Dahl, who is very famous for writing novels aimed at young children, wrote ‘Lamb to the slaughter’. This particular book ‘Someone like you’, was one of his first book aimed at grown- ups. It contains a number of short stories, mostly written in different styles. One thing that is common in all of them, is that they contain a funny taste of humor, we could define as ‘black humor’. The title of the story ‘Lamb to the slaughter’ already gives away the possible plot of the story; we know that a lamb is somehow going to be involved in the story and might be of help in the crime. Roald Dahl cleverly describes the two main characters in a way to make us sympathize with the murderer. He also makes us feel sorry for Mrs. Maloney and judge her husband rude and heartless. This way the reader stands on Mrs. Maloney’s side and makes us cheer for her to get away with her crime; and somehow feel that her husband deserved what happened to him. There is a little suspense towards the end of the story and Mrs. Maloney makes several twisty moves, which lets us suppose that this is more of a detective short story. One thing however, that is missing in this story to fully make it a detective one is the presence of a professional detective. Although there are policemen coming to investigate Mr. Maloney’s death they are not exceptionally skilled and there is no real investigation taking place. What more, the policemen weren’t even successful in their work and haven’t realized who the killer was. The reader cannot truly feel involved in the story, and as the narrator is omniscient and the crime is described when it takes place, it is written in present tense, there is no thinking to do whatsoever about who the murderer is and the crime itself. The identity of the murderer is a mystery for the policemen only, and we witness as they vainly struggle to find the murder weapon. There are no complicated puzzles or problems to be solved in this story neither are there any unexpected turns apart from the slightly surprising ending. Mrs. Maloney isn’t a master criminal of any kind; she is an ordinary housewife who committed a crime of passion. The slaughter wasn’t planned ahead; she acted out of revenge, and operated very spontaneously and unexpectedly. It seems as if she even hesitated before acting and we are not sure if she actually indented to kill her husband.

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The ‘Red Headed League’ is a very different short story from the previous one. Its author is well known for writing twisty detective stories featuring the brilliant and talented Sherlock Holmes. Doctor Watson, who plays the role of assistant to Holmes in the story, is the narrator of the story; we are reading his memoirs and also mostly Mr. Wilson accounts. Watson has a limited view into things, therefore the reader does not know who the criminals are or their reasons for the crime; we aren’t ahead of Holmes. The reader is left a bit clueless at the beginning of the story and we only find out what happened at the end, at the same time as Watson. There is undeniably a mystery in the story and that is the dissolving of the RHL and what its creators are up to. The beginning of the story appears to be a rather misleading and confusing, as it is hard to link the dissolving of the RHL with any possible crime. The detective, Holmes is gifted with excellent deductive powers and is always a few steps ahead of Watson and hence the reader. The reader is given just as many clues to be able to work out the problem as Holmes, so we can do our own bit of investigation and even figure out the mystery if we are very sharp. Suspense and surprise both come towards the end of the story when the mystery is revealed and the problem is solved. In this particular story the criminals are caught and Mr. Holmes is triumphant.

It is hard to say that the ‘Red Headed League’ and ‘Lamb to the slaughter’ are both written in the same style, but it is indisputable that they are similar. A crime is committed in both of them, which could let us suppose that they are both detective story. But, not all stories containing crime are detective stories. It is important that at some detection has to take place as a response to the crime, and usually in all detective stories mysteries are solved and criminals arrested. The two stories already differ at this point, as in ‘L. to the S.’ Mrs. Maloney is never convicted of her husband’s murder, while in ‘The RHL’ the robbers are caught and punished. In ‘L. to the S.’ the reader is already aware of the crime whereas in the ‘The RLH’ we are witnessing Holmes investigating and putting the clues together in the span of a few days. There is also a difference it time in the two stories. ‘L. to the S.’ happens in a short period of time and the reader doesn’t know much about the Maloneys’ past, we are not even exactly sure of what led to the murder, while in the ‘The RHL’ Mr. Holmes’ detection is influenced by happenings of two previous months and the story takes place in 2-3 days, as Holmes needs time to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The major difference between the two short stories is that ‘L. to the S.’ does not really contain mystery at least no to the eyes of the reader, and is written in present tense and narrated by an outsider who is not limited in the knowledge of what’s happening.

I believe that we can call both short stories detective fiction but one of them is more appropriate than the other (The Red Headed League). Everybody’s expectations are different, as all readers have different tastes in books; but the main requirements of detective fiction are to have suspense, surprise, crime and puzzles. Both of the stories contain a few of these main elements, if not all. I feel that ‘The Red Headed League’ is a better detective story, as a very famous detective plays role in it. It was also written by a writer who specialized in this genre of story; while Roald Dahl is more of a humoristic writer. Furthermore, ‘The RHL’ was made much more interesting and contained more suspense by a premeditated crime and Holmes’ detective work. I took pleasure in reading both of these stories but I find that The Red Headed League more enjoyable as a detective story because the facts and solutions weren’t put right under our noses and the ending was quite startling.