In Lamb to the Slaughter the opening paragraph describes all about the room that virtually the whole story was set in. It describes about how the room was set out and it makes the reader imagine the setting in their head straight away so it is a good basis for the rest of the story. “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.”
Lamb to the Slaughter is much more modern in the language and the way the story was set out because Sherlock Holmes is a classic detective and readers know what he is associated with. Lamb to the Slaughter is about Mary Maloney getting away with murder and grabbing readers’ attentions and making them sit on the edge of their seats. Speckled Band is about seeing and waiting for Sherlock Holmes to undoubtedly solve his case.
The settings in the two stories are totally different, The Speckled Band was set in Victorian London, so you can tell it’s old and Lamb to the Slaughter was set in America. In a house that was modern clean and the Maloney’s were in a loving relationship.
The narrator in Speckled Band was Watson (Holmes’ companion and friend.) However Lamb to the Slaughter uses Roahl Dahl as a story telling narrator, this makes the reader feel more involved in the story because it is actually being told to you. The narrator in Speckled Band talks about Holmes as a friend and not the story; this is a big difference in how the reader understands the story.
The characters in the two plays are different because of the background and setting for the two plays.
Sherlock Holmes is the main character in The Speckled Band and Mary Maloney is the main character in Lamb to the Slaughter, but I think the readers have sympathy for Mary Maloney because of what she has to put up with and many would say that was she did was justified. She’s alone, loving, pregnant, and she’s been betrayed.
In the two plays there is more suspense in Lamb to the Slaughter because people sympathise with Mary Maloney and they’re waiting to see if she gets away with murder.
In Lamb to the Slaughter there is always going to be a twist at the end because it’s a black comedy, either she gets away with it or not. In Speckled Band everybody knows that Sherlock Holmes will solve his case even before they have read the book. (Traditional genre).
In the plots of these two stories there are differences and similarities. They are both detective fiction but have different approaches.
In Speckled Band, Helen Stoner’s the victim, the murderer is unknown to the reader, and there is suspense involved. Obviously if the reader knew at an early stage who committed the crime then there would be no point in Sherlock Holmes being involved and there goes your main character.
Lamb to the Slaughter, meanwhile tells the reader who is the murderer, this is clever because Dahl knows he has the reader gripped into the story now and he wants the reader to sympathise with Mary Maloney.
In Lamb to the Slaughter I think the development of the story is really good because Mary Maloney is so believable in every lie she tells, she gets people onto her side, as if she is the victim as well as her husband.
“Is he dead” she cried, just after the police arrived. When she called the police she said “Quick, come quick! Patrick’s dead!”
The Speckled Band develops differently as it goes on because nobody knows who’s committed the crime; sympathy lays with the victim, not the murderer. Holmes and Watson go about their jobs extremely professionally throughout the story.
The narrator goes onto explain exactly what they are doing and how well they handle the situation. “It was nearly one ‘o’ clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his excursion. He held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled over with notes and figures.”
At the end of Lamb to the Slaughter there is a twist by the detectives eating the murder weapon unknowingly and in The Speckled Band, Holmes explains his actions through Watson the narrator.
The differences in English affect the stories because in Speckled Band, Sir Arthur uses standard English and Lamb to the Slaughter uses modern English.
I prefer Lamb to the Slaughter because of the more modern setting, more modern use of language and just in general the whole plot. Even if The Speckled Band were the more modern play I still wouldn’t choose it because I didn’t like the plot.
Basically Lamb to the Slaughter is more modern and Speckled Band is old. The plot in Speckled Band did really bore me, unlike Lamb to the Slaughter, which was full of suspense.
