In the scene of the crime in ‘The Speckled Band’ was in an old house. The house is described as “The building was of grey, lichen – blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin.” This creates a spooky and scary atmosphere. The atmosphere makes me feel very cautious because it’s a typical description of a haunted house where anything could suddenly happen. You could relate this atmosphere to a typical atmosphere of a murder mystery. To add to the atmosphere or fear and horror were both a baboon and cheetah in the house.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the detective did not suspect Mary Maloney, put pressure on her, they didn’t make her leave the room, suspect a women and didn’t solve the crime. These were things, which they should have done. Things they did do which they should have done were discussing the crime with Mary, drinking, eating on duty and eating the evidence. The detectives were very sloppy with the investigation “ she could hear them speaking among themselves, their voices thick and sloppy.” This has a double meaning about the detectives and their investigation. They were thick because they ate the evidence and they ran a sloppy case.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ Sherlock Holmes suspects Grimesby Roylott, treats the case as urgent, treats Helen Stoner kindly, spots all the clues, recognises red herrings, takes personal risks and solves the crime. He does this by spotting all the clues “My attention was speedily drawn…to this ventilator, and to the ropes which hung down to the bed. The discovery that this was a dummy and that the bed was clamped to the floor, instantly gave rise to suspicion that the rope was there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me. Initially I had an idea that Doctor Grimesby Roylott had something to do with the murder, but after, when Sherlock Holmes revealed it couldn’t be him I had a suspicion that it was an animal because there was a cheetah and a baboon in the house. Sherlock Holmes is a good detective because he is very observant and picks up on clues very quickly. He also thinks very logically.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the murderer, Mary Maloney gets away with killing Patrick Maloney. She wasn’t suspected atoll. At first she was sad but eventually got over it. This doesn’t usually happen in murder mysteries. I think she was clever how she managed to get rid of the evidence. What else is unusual is that the murderer was a pregnant woman.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ the murderer, Doctor Roylott, gets killed by the snake. I think he deserved to get killed because he is sick and twisted and does not care for any one apart from himself. I like my murder mysteries to have a twist at the end and that good always wins.
The most exciting part of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ was when Mary Maloney hit her husband over the head with a leg of lamb “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without and pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb on the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head.” The part which made me carry on reading the story was when Patrick Maloney was going to tell Mary the bad news “This is going to be a bit of a shock to you, I’m afraid’ he said ‘but I’ve thought about it a good deal and I’ve decided the only thing to do is to tell you right away. I hope you won’t blame me too much.”
The most exciting part of ‘The Speckled Band’ was when the snake killed Doctor Grimsbey Roylott. “His chin was cocked upwards, and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful rigid stare at the corner of the ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor movement.” Another part, which made me want to read on, was when Doctor Roylott followed Miss Helen Stoner to Sherlock Holmes office “Don’t you dare meddle with my affairs. I know Miss Stoner has been here-I traced her! I am a dangerous to fall foul of! See here.”
‘The Speckled Band’ is set in Victorian times. We know this because it uses old -fashioned language, difficult words, women wore long dresses and gloves. We also know this because dogcarts were around in this time. “There is no dog cart which throws up mud in that way”. You can tell the ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is set in the 50’s because the language used is modern. In the story there is also a car “tyres on the gravel outside”, and a thermos bucket “Fresh ice in the Thermos Bucket.” They both show that the story was set in the 1980’s.
I don’t think it is unusual that there are no female detectives because both before and after the 1900’s and during half of the 20th centaury women were only thought of as house wives and who only listen to their father who would have no say in anything.
‘The Speckled Band’ because it went into detail with the investigation, unlike ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’
which was a snappy story and a quick investigation. Even though the language is more old fashioned then the language used in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ I found it more enjoyable. Both stories had unconventional endings which I liked and made both stories more interesting.
People will always like to read Murder Mysteries because they are interesting and they make you think about what will happen, and you have to work things out using clues which you have been given.
Murder mysteries all have a similar plot consisting of a body, a motive, a weapon, a suspect, an alibi and detectives. Viewers and readers expect this in the text, Lamb to the Slaughter and The Speckled Band are no exception.
Most murder mysteries have the typical victims, murderers, and detectives, this is especially true in the older murder mysteries by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Speckled Band has a typical detective, the famous detective being Sherlock Holmes with his deer stalker hat and pipe always deep in thought about the investigation “his arms folded, his hat pulled down over his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the deepest thought”. But in the Lamb to the Slaughter the detectives are so foolish and naives, a complete contrast to Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes comes across as a typical fictional detective.
In addition Miss Stoner, in The Speckled Band is a typical victim, vulnerable, anxious, weak and scared. She say’s “ It is not cold which makes me shiver”, she was worried for her life. This line grips the reader and we can sense that something sinister is about to happen. Also in The Speckled Band, Dr Roylott, is the evil, plotting, devious, fictional murderer, this character was portrayed in most murder mysteries stories written in the late 19 century. The Speckled Band was written in 1892.
In the Lamb to the Slaughter we had no idea who the murderer and victim were going to be until the murder had been committed, in fact you might of thought the roles would have been reversed once reading the first few pages. The detectives in the story are portrayed as acting as typical modern police detectives, they eat the evidence! The detectives appear so stupid and useless compared to the marvellous and calculating Sherlock Holmes.
The points of high tension are different in the two stories. In The Speckled Band the main point of high tension is right at the end when they find out who the murderer is and when the snake comes at Holmes “Holmes sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with his cane at the bell-pull”.
Other points of tension were Helen Stoner talking to Holmes, “ Frightened eyes like those of some hunted animal”, the night of the murder, “A wild wind. The wind was howling outside….. suddenly there burst forth the wild scream of a woman”, and the sister’s hot words, “She suddenly shrieked out in a voice which I shall never forget, “ O, my God! Helen! It was the band! The Speckled band!”. In the Lamb to the Slaughter the point of high tension is whether the detectives would find out that it was Mrs Maloney who killed her husband, “Probably right under our very noses. What do you think, Jack?’ And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle”.
The differences in the settings in the two stories is that the Roald Dahl story is set in the present time, whereas the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story is set in a period of over 100 years ago. Both of the murders are set in the family home. In the Lamb to the Slaughter, “The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight”. “The bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms being in the central block of the building”, describes the house of Dr Roylott in The Speckled Band.
From my perspective I think that the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, The Speckled Band is the most successful out of the two, as the author made the main character, Sherlock Holmes such an intriguing and interesting character, who draws the audience in. He leaves the reader in suspense until the end of the story until the murderer is revealed. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories are so well-know due to the stories being turned into films and shown on the television.
There are many more differences than similarities between the two stories. I think this is because the writers are two very different people and they have different backgrounds, Roald Dahl mostly wrote for children and that perhaps it is very light hearted the way that he has pops at the detectives, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a doctor and knew all the medical views of the cases which makes his books more real and perhaps he had a more of a respect towards the police than Roald Dahl did. The stories are different because of the time they were written, Roald Dahl wrote about a women killing her husband and that may have been less common in 1892 and that Is why Conan Doyle wrote about the women being a victim and her stepfather killing the girls.