Due to the unorthodox perspective in which Lamb to the Slaughter is told, the events in which you would expect to happen in a murder mystery are put in complete reverse. The typical order being:
- Friend/kin of victim giving report of murder and other details to detectives.
- Detectives investigate.
- Murder mystery is solved.
- Motive and how it was done explained. (Sometimes catching the murder in his/her next act.)
The Speckled Band does follow this pattern, however, in Lamb to the Slaughter the events happen in the following order:
- Build up and motive of killing explained.
- Murder is committed (so you know who it was).
- Detectives investigate.
- Wife gives details to the detectives.
The Speckled Band is based in your classic place for a murder mystery, a 'large forbidding house', in this case the manor of Stoke Moran. Arthur Conan Doyle has used similar settings for some of his previous stories such as 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. Roald Dahl chooses to set the story in the Maloney residence, a not so typical choice for a murder mystery setting. Dahl chooses this because he wants the setting to be a familiar, everyday setting, with normal, everyday people living in it and nothing unusual about any of it. He describes one room in the residence as: "warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight, hers and the one by the empty chair opposite." There is nothing special about the room at all. This is perhaps to lead you into a false sense of security leaving the reader more shocked when the murder happens. This is the complete opposite to the description of the manor of Stoke Moran. Dr Watson gives a description of the Roylott mansion, "In one of the wings the windows were broken, and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin." It gives the reader an image of an eerie, old, manor house where something bad is begging to happen.
I am now going to consider the contrast in the characters. In the Speckled Band, Dr Roylott is basically made out to be the murderer from the very beginning due to Watson's and Helen Stoner's descriptions of him, and his meeting with Holmes. Helen Stoner told Holmes, that Dr Roylott had "violence of temper approaching mania," which resulted in long-term imprisonment in India because "in a fit of anger caused by some robberies which had been perpetuated in the house, he beat his native butler to death." Dr Roylott has already been made out to be the villain and it's no surprise at the end when you find out he is the murderer. Once again, this is the complete opposite of Dahl's story. In Lamb to the Slaughter, the murderer is Mary Maloney. You would not suspect the person that "now and again... would glance up at the clock... merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come." (The 'he' being her husband, the man she is going to kill.) Instead of being made out to be the villain, she is made out to be a normal, loving, caring housewife incapable of murder.
Dr Roylott is not only made out as an evil villain by opinion, but by the way he behaves as well. Instead of begin sociable, "he shut himself up in house, and seldom came out, save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path." In other words, he's quite typically the guy you would expect to be behind the murder in a murder mystery.
The way the story ends in both cases are different. The Sherlock Holmes story ends as we would expect it to, with the villain being found out and justice served. Whereas the Roald Dahl story ends inconclusively. It ends with the villain in the story having the upper hand as the detectives eat the only remaining evidence. This goes against everything you would expect and gives the story an entertaining twist at the end.
The authors have written the stories very differently, I think this is to do with the audience they are aimed at. The language used in the stories is different due to the audience of the times they were written in. The Sherlock Holmes stories were wrote 30-40 years before Lamb to the Slaughter. In Lamb to the Slaughter, the language is very plain and ordinary. For example, the opening line tells us this:
"The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn,
the two table lamps alight - hers and the one by the
empty chair opposite. On the sideboard behind her,
two tall glasses, soda water, whisky. Fresh ice cubes
in the Thermos Bucket.
Not only is the language simple, but there is nothing special at all about the room. Whereas the Speckled Band has really dramatic descriptions with everything exaggerated and explained in huge detail. This style crosses over to the kind of language the characters are using. In the Speckled Band, Sherlock's first words are:
"Very sorry to knock you up, Watson, but it's the
common lot this morning. Mrs Hudson has been knocked
up, she retorted upon me, and I on you."
This is very strange and abnormal compared to the language the characters are using in Lamb to the Slaughter:
"Hullo, darling." she said.
"Hullo." He answered.
You really cannot get anymore simple than that.
I think the twist in Lamb to the Slaughter was because people it makes a change from the typical outcome the audience is expecting. I am going to conclude that they both have many qualities of a murder mystery, it is simply the properties of a murder mystery that have changed over the 30-40 years or so in between that have made the stories so different. I can back this up with the way I think Lamb to the Slaughter is a more compelling read, due to it's twists throughout the story and the way it is easy to relate to because it is so normal. However, the twists mean you can never tell what is to happen next and because of that I think it will do a better job at attracting a modern day audience.
By Sam Lees
