Lamb to the slaughter and The speckled band

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Bobby Abraham

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Coursework

                                  Wider Reading

Both Lamb to the slaughter and The speckled band are murder mysteries. Although they both include factors, which make a typical murder mystery, they are both very different. In this essay I will compare both stories and look at how they are different, how they are similar and what effect this has on the reader.

The most obvious similarity between the two stories is the basic typical factors that make a murder mystery. A murderer and a victim. The victim in The speckled band is a typical victim. It is a female who is vulnerable and I think, is very lonely. Her mother was killed in an accident and her sister has been murdered. The murderer is also very typical of a murder mystery, it is a male who is very big and very strong, and he also has a very bad temper. He gives us evidence of his temper when he follows Ms Stoner to the home of Sherlock Holmes, where he calls Holmes a "busy body" and a "Scotland yard jack-in-office" and then in a rage grabs a steel poker and twists it with his bare hands.

On reading Lamb to the slaughter, you find that Roald Dahl has not opted for a typical murderer or victim. The murderer is a female who is heavily pregnant and seems to be happily married. I am presuming she is happily married because "she would glance up at the clock", "merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time he would come".

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The victim is very different as well. The victim is a male police senior, portrayed as very dominant. Reasons to suggest this are the fact that as a police senior he has a lot of authority and when his wife talks to him he replies in short and abrupt answers.  For example when asked by his wife would he like his slippers he replies with a snappy "no".

The murderer and victim work well in both stories due to the scenes before and after the murder, because suspense is built as the reader waits for the murder to take ...

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