Compare the two short stories, ‘The Signalman’ by Charles Dickens and ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ by Roald Dahl.

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Compare the two short stories, 'The Signalman' by Charles Dickens and 'Lamb to the Slaughter' by Roald Dahl.

At the beginning of both stories there is a normal sort of mood for instance in Lamb to the Slaughter, Mary is sitting down sowing waiting for her husband and in The Signalman the railway worker is going about his usual day. Some phrases that made me think that it was a normal mood from Lamb to the Slaughter were 'Hullo, Darling', 'Tired, darling' and 'Darling, shall I get your slippers'. There is a neutral sort of effect on the reader upon the opening of the book.

Lamb to the Slaughter is set in the past at Mary and Patrick Maloneys house and The Signalman is set in and around a deep railway cutting during the 19th century. There aren't really any similarities between the two stories apart from the fact they are both set in the past.

The theme of Lamb to the Slaughter is a murder-revenge theme were a wife gets revenge on her husband by killing him.
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The Signalman is a story where a ghost appears when the signalman goes to check the trains, whenever the ghost appears a person will die on the railway. I think that Roald Dahl was trying to make the point that Mary loved her husband enough to kill him. I also think that Dickens was trying to make a point but I am not sure what. The two stories are both similar in the way that they both contain murders or deaths.

The main characters in Lamb to the Slaughter are Mary Maloney and her husband Patrick Maloney. ...

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