Compare and Contrast 'Lamb to the Slaughter and 'The Speckled Band'

‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ however is portrayed as being set in modern Ireland in an ordinary house with an ordinary couple. The names of the couple help us to predict where the couple are living ‘Mr and Mrs Maloney’. The murder is set in the living room of the house. “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.” This not one of the most suspecting rooms that a murder could take place in but in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ it is used as the room for the murder.  

In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the villain is Mary Maloney. She was married to the victim Patrick Maloney.  Mary Maloney was pregnant and looked beautiful “Her skin…for this was her sixth month with a child…had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was soft and the eyes, with their placid look, seemed larger, darker than before.” Her motive for murdering her husband was because he has told her he would be leaving her for someone else. Mary was very worried about getting caught so she produced an act to remove her self from the suspects. She also didn’t want her and the child to be killed “What were the laws about murders with unborn children?  Did they kill them both…mother and child?”

In ‘The Speckled Band’ the villain is Dr. Roylott. He was a violent man who had a bad and short temper “In a fit of anger, however, caused by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native butler to death”. His motive for trying to kill Miss Helen Stoner was over money.  His deceased wife left money for her daughters, but if they die he would receive the money. Dr. Roylott is portrayed as a usual 19th Century villain, evil, short tempered, and devious. In a lot of Victorian detective stories the villain is represented the same way as Dr. Roylott in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story. Dr. Roylott is shown to look very evil very much in his face “his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey”.

The victim in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is Patrick Maloney.  He was married to Mary Maloney.  He was killed when Mary Maloney hit him over the head with a leg of lamb. We do not know a lot about Patrick only that we know that he works at the local Police station.

In the ‘Speckled Band’ the victim is Miss Helen Stoner.  When we first see her in the story she was wearing black, veiled and grey haired.  She was shivering and terrified “we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with a restless frightened eyes, like of those of some hunted animal”, “the lady gave a violent start”, “It is fear, Mr Holmes.  It is terror.”

Holmes is the classic detective and assisted by Dr Watson. In ‘The Speckled Band’ Sherlock Holmes suspects Dr. Roylott, treats the case as urgent, treats Helen Stoner kindly, spots all the clues, recognises red herrings, takes personal risks and solves the crime. As I mentioned earlier this shows how Holmes is the perfect detective and the way authors wrote in the 19th Century.

How ever in comparison to ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the detective Sergeant Jack Noonan did not suspect Mary Maloney. Firstly, he allows Mrs Maloney to persuade him to drink some whiskey while on duty. This makes him less observant, since whiskey is strong enough to dull the mind and the senses. He also assumes that since Patrick Maloney was hit with a large, blunt, heavy object, it had to be a man since a woman may not have been able to use an object that heavy.

Most importantly, after he spends six hours looking for the murder weapon, he goes into the kitchen and eats it, not having put together the facts that Sam the Grocer probably told him that Mary was cooking a leg of lamb straight from frozen, and that this particular leg of lamb was shaped like a club.

The main difference though between the two detectives though is that in the end, Holmes solves the case while the detectives don’t, and even if they had, they would have already destroyed all the evidence they had.        

The sentence structure of ‘The Speckled Band’ uses short and descriptive sentences. Always using speech in every paragraph. The story builds up tension by using the short sentences.

The sentence structure of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is quite different to the other story. ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ uses more direct speech than dialogue. The tension of the story seems to rise nearer the end of the story where the detective becomes very close to finding the murderer.

In contrast the two short stories use very different language techniques. The story ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ all have the basic murder mystery structure                ‘Who Done It’. ‘ Lamb to the Slaughter’ is different in the story line but it is basically the same structure as ‘The Speckled Band’.

The story ‘The Speckled Band’ uses very Formal language, late 19th Century England language and phrases “ Very sorry to knock you up, Watson”.  

The story ‘ Lamb to the Slaughter’ in comparison to ‘The Speckled Band’ uses more modern, 20th Century language techniques “Darling shall I get your slippers?” The language also helps the story itself, it helps with the telling of the murder, making it more unexpected. The story includes two major plot twists; the first being the murder itself, made unexpected by what has been described of Mary Maloney’s character in the language techniques. The setting, and the form the murder weapon takes among other things. The second plot twist is at the end, where the detectives eat the murder weapon. This is all due to these language techniques.

The moral message in ‘The Speckled Band’ is of an old 19th Century storyline ‘Good always wins over evil’. In contrast to ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’ the moral message is very different. ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’ however uses a Modern Moral code. ‘Crime does pay’ in ‘Lambs to the Slaughter’. However. It is clear that ‘The Speckled Band reinforces 19th Century morality ‘crime doesn’t pay’.  

In comparison the stories use very different language techniques, moral code and settings. This helps the stories have different storylines and endings due to them being written in very different times.