Wider Reading Coursework
Compare ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ referring to the structure language and characterisation. In what ways are the stories typical of the detective story genre?
Introduction
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Speckled Band and Lamb To The Slaughter was written by Roald Dahl in 1954. The Speckled Band and Lamb To The Slaughter are both Detective stories where someone is killed and there are detectives are brought in to find out why they were killed and how. In The Speckled Band, Dr Roylett is in the end killed by something that no one has ever seen. No one saw Dr Roylett die and no one knows how he died. In Lamb To The Slaughter Mr Maloney is killed by his wife, Mary Maloney, but the police don’t know who he has been killed by, why he has been killed. They know that a weapon was used, but they don’t know what weapon is used but what they don’t know is that they get rid of the evidence themselves.
The Speckled Band is written in third person narrative. The story begins when the daughter of Dr. Roylett is moved into her older sisters old bedroom because where her bedroom is located, there is building works happening. She isn’t very happy about this and this brings up the reason to why her older died a few years before and she begins to investigate about it. Dr. Roylett tells her to forget about it but she doesn’t and then hires in a private detective to find out the truth. We learn about the case throughout the story as Holmes and Watson discover more and it is eventually solved by the surprising unfortunate death of Dr. Roylett. Conan Doyle makes the reader want to read on many times during the story. For example, about the fact that the Speckled Band comes through the ventilation shaft from Dr. Royletts bedroom but the Speckled Band is no where to be seen in Dr. Royletts bedroom. I would say that this story is a typical detective story apart from the ending where the Dr. Roylett dies.