How far are The Speckled Band and Lamb to the Slaughter typical of murder mysteries? How are the stories the same and how are they different? Compare the ways in which the stories are told.

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How far are The Speckled Band and Lamb to the Slaughter typical of murder mysteries? How are the stories the same and how are they different? Compare the ways in which the stories are told.

        Usually mad scientists and charming detectives come to mind when the phrase ‘murder mysteries’ is used. Although this is typical, many murder mysteries are different. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ and ‘The Speckled Band’ are good examples of murder mysteries and these are the stories I will be concentrating on in this essay.

        Both stories are old, ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ being the more modern of the two. I know this because Sherlock Holmes lived in the Victoria Era and ‘The Speckled Band’ was published in 1892 whereas in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ there is a car mentioned, which would indicate that this story was written later than ‘The Speckled Band’. In addition to this, Mr. Maloney is described as a housewife, which is a more appropriate description to the 1950’s or 1960’s opposed to the Victorian times.

        There are also a few similarities and differences between the two stories, such as in the ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, we know who the murdered is whereas in ‘The Speckled Band’ we don’t know. Other similarities and differences could be that ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is set in a regular house whereas ‘The Speckled Band’ is set in an old manor house.

        We studied another murder mystery aswell, a Jonathan Creek episode. This was a typical murder mystery, it was set in an old house, obviously there was a murder, there was a red herring (to throw the detective off-course) and the detective explained everything at the end. This story is very much like ‘The Speckled Band’, because in both stories all of the above happens and also something mysterious happens (in the Jonathan Creek story, the victim is found laying on the stairs with his hands under the door even though he was murdered and thrown on the floor at the foot of the stairs, and in ‘The Speckled Band’, Sherlock Holmes is unable to discover how the victim died when her window was shut and her door locked) none of this happens in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’.

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        Dr. Watson is the narrator in ‘The Speckled Band’ and he speaks in past tense, therefore, he didn’t know all that had happened, whereas in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ we d not know who the narrator is and we got to know almost everything that happened.

        I think that ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is more descriptive from the beginning, whereas ‘The Speckled Band’ has a lot of in-depth detail during the story; also, the speech in both stories is very much different. In ‘The Speckled Band’ it is more formal and posh whereas in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the ...

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