There are a lot of differences in the two different stories and some of them include the difference in setting. There is Mary Maloney’s snug home with the feeling that it is very warm and comfortable, and then there is Dr. Roylotts home, with animals roaming around at all hours of the night. This is a momentous difference.
In a murder story you can never really tell who the murderer actually is unless like in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ you are told who it is. The murderer could be anyone but you have your ideas of who it might be. This was not true however in Victorian times. They would expect the murderer to be male, he should have been quite clever, and not as they thought, a helpless female. In ‘The Speckled Band’ we get a series of clues that allows us to attempt to solve the crime. In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ we don’t get this and are told straight away who it is. I don’t think an alibi is used at all in ‘The Speckled Band’ compared to ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. Mary Maloney uses an alibi to let people think she was nowhere near the house when she killed her husband. By doing this we realise how clever she is and not just ‘the little women at home’ which is what we first thought.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ Holmes, the detective is an educated, cultured, refined and polite man who treated women especially with curtsey. Victorians would expect this. The same goes for the murderer. They would find it hard to accept a women murderer like Mary Maloney in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. And the murderer would be caught because they would demand that good triumphs over evil. However in today’s society the crime does not have to be solved, as we are comfortable not knowing who it is, at least in stories anyway. People are satisfied with the murderer being female and social class is less important than it was. Only in some cases women are not thought of being murderers because they are too well respected.
The settings are very different in the two stories. Mary Maloney’s home is very warm, clean, cosy and very homely. You would feel welcome in this house. You would feel safe. But as for Roylott’s I think you get the impression of not being very safe as it gives off this hostile and disturbing vibe with it’s bramble covered land and all of it’s with animals.
You can tell which story is most modern by looking at the descriptions given and the language used. Dr. Roylott’s home is big, empty and a horrid grey colour, which makes you, think of cold and dull objects. However Mary Maloney’s home is quite the opposite, it states the house is very cosy, which is a house you wouldn’t mind staying in.
The impression I first get of Mary Maloney is calm and tranquil which doesn’t make you think of murder, so you wouldn’t suspect her of killing her husband. I don’t think people should say she isn’t capable of murder because you never know what a person is really capable of. At the start of the story I think Roald Dahl is trying to mislead us by giving off the impression that she is this perfect little housewife when really she has always been the character she is at the end.
Yet Dr. Roylott is very different by the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes him. It also says he has killed before so you automatically think that it is him. Even if it wasn’t him you would still suspect him, as he is a big presence in the story and everything leads up to him. I think he is definitely a typical murderer for the Victorian era; people only thought clever men could ever do something like this.
The same goes for Homes. He is male, he is well respected, intelligent and most importantly in those days, middle class. He keeps his attitude the same all the way through the story and does not give into Helen he also takes in everything she does on there first meeting together.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ I think Roald Dahl builds up tension be allowing us to know more about the murder then the characters in the story. This works because you get excited by thinking ‘are they going to find out or not’. In addition he puts the story at a cliffhanger ending, either he did this on purpose so we will never find if the detectives find out who it was or he did it because he wanted to write a follow up on it. That is what I think builds up the tension. We want them to find out, but weather they do we don’t know.
‘The Speckled Band’ on the other hand is dissimilar and this story I think built up more tension than the other one, which makes it more interesting to me. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle builds up tension by letting you follow clues that he has very cleverly set out for us to solve, and the descriptions we get of Dr. Roylott’s house, with its gloomy surroundings and of Roylott himself, we also know Helen is scared of him.
I think the most enjoyable story was ‘The Speckled Band’. I enjoyed this the most because I like to solve things and try and figure things out, it makes the whole story more interesting to read because you know there is something extra to do while reading. In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ everything is given to you on a plate and there is no excitement trying to work it out.
The most successful story I think was ‘The Speckled Band’ and I’m not just saying that because I enjoyed it the most. I think Holmes was a much better detective than Jack Noonan and O’Malley. Holmes is not as familiar as those in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, so this I think is what made it more successful.
I don’t know if Holmes could have solved the modern murder because it is really hard to tell. He might of because he is a dedicated detective and is up for any sort of challenge. On the other hand he was not really from those times so he might not have known what was really going on. I don’t think that Jack and the rest of his officers would have solved the Victorian murder because they couldn’t have even solved the modern one with all the technology they had.
