Both Conan-Doyle and Dahl use various techniques to make their stories more interesting; for example, in Dahl's “Lamb to the Slaughter” the story revolves around the character of Mrs Mary Maloney, loving housewife and a killer. Whereas many stories concentrate on the detective or sometimes the victim, this story concentrates on the character of the murderer. This kind of view
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 we have seen of Mary Maloney’s character, 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.
Conan-Doyle used techniques in writing “The Speckled Band” also. His story revolves around the character of the detective, Sherlock Holmes. The story, though centred on Holmes, is told as seen through the eyes of Dr Watson. Unlike Dahl's story, "The Speckled Band" is a classic 'whodunit', and so there is suspense.
Although both the stories have some of the typical characteristics of a detective story, they are presented differently, like for example the setting, the characters and of course the plot,
With the murderers, Conan-Doyle went with the more traditional idea. The character of the murderer is Dr Roylott, a very violent man. You can guess that he is the murderer in this story just by the description Dr Watson gives of him. He describes Dr Roylott as ‘a huge man’, who possessed ‘A large face seared with a thousand wrinkles and marked with every evil passion’. He has ‘deep-set, bile shot eyes’ and a ‘high thin fleshless nose, (which) gave him the resemblance of a fierce bird of pray’
Dr Roylott would seem to be evil from the start. Watson on looking at him remarked that his face was ‘marked with every evil passion’ and this gives us an idea on what his personality is like, i.e. evil. The story says that ‘he beat his native butler to death.’ Telling us more on how angry and nasty he can be, giving us a bad view of him, to tell us that he is the killer.
Dr Roylott lived a secluded life once he moved to Stoke Moran. Once he arrived, instead of being sociable, ‘he shut himself up in his house, and seldom came out, save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whomever might cross his path.’ Helen Stoner said that after the death of his wife, he abandoned all ideas of setting up a practise in London and moved to Stoke Moran. ‘But a terrible change came over our stepfather at that time… he became the terror of the village, and folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger.’ This basically tells us that Dr Roylott is a very violent person, who may be capable of murdering his own daughters and not feel guilty, just for the money.
In “Lamb to the Slaughter” the murderer is not expected. I think in most stories the author would have Mrs Maloney as a victim. I wouldn’t expect her as the type of person to murder someone who she seems to dote on “now and again… would glance up at the clock… merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.” And the “he” being her victim in the end. She already seems like a loving, caring housewife waiting for her husband to come home on a Thursday night, you definitely wouldn’t expect her to be a murderer.
Dr Roylott would seem to be evil right from the start, and so Dahl creates a murderer who is describes as having ‘a slow smiling air about her and about everything she does’. Dahl goes on to describe her more, using phrases such as ‘curiously tranquil’, ‘Her skin… had acquired a wonderful translucent quality,’ and ‘ The eyes… seemed larger, darker than before’ What makes her the usual victim is the phrase that read ‘this was her sixth month with child’; So, a pregnant murderer. If Dr Roylott is the typical murderer, then Mary Maloney is the total opposite.
The way Dahl develops his character for Mary Maloney though makes her definitely the more interesting of the two villains. She goes from a loving housewife waiting for her husband to come home, to a woman with a frozen leg of lamb above her head, just about to swing it down and kill him as an act of revenge, and then to a very cold and calculating woman, covering her tracks perfectly by getting an alibi and destroying the murder weapon which was just luck. It’s a very different change in character. It shocked me when she says so calmly “Alright… so I’ve killed him”
The change in her character happens immediately at this point. ‘It was extraordinary, now, how clear her mind became all of a sudden. She began thinking very fast.’ She decides that she doesn’t mind the death penalty is acceptable. ‘In fact, it would be a relief’.
When the detectives come she seems either totally in control of the situation and trying to cover it up, or in shock or denial. I think she is a bit of both at this point in the story.
Throughout the police investigation, she acts totally innocent, unlike Dr Roylott. She talks the detectives into having a drink of whiskey in the hope they wont think as fast, making them not realise that when they are sat at the table, they are eating the murder weapon. She almost seems as if she has done this before. Her intelligence and ability to cover her tracks well make her more like a murderer.
As for victims, Conan-Doyle makes the most typical character in Helen Stoner.
The typical victim in a murder mystery is a person, usually a woman when the murderer is as typical as Dr Roylott, and almost always rich. Firstly, she is a woman obviously, and a scared one, ‘It is not cold which makes me shiver… It is terror’.
It is revealed that Helen Stoner is about to come into a fairly large amount. She says that an agreement was made whereby all her mothers fortune was to go to Dr Roylott, ‘with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage’, then later reveals that she will be marrying ‘a dear friend, whom I have known for many years’
Later in the plot, Holmes uncovers the will of Helen Stoner’s mother, and finds out ‘each daughter can claim an income of £250, in case of marriage.’ So, we now know that after Helen Stoner’s wedding, Dr Roylott would have had to given her £250 per year.
In Conan-Doyle’s story, ‘The Speckled Band’ centres around the detective- the original typical detective- Sherlock Holmes, whereas in Dahl’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, the detectives, led by Jack Noonan, play a small ending role in the story. Holmes is, the typical detective. Holmes takes every chance he gets to exercise, or sometimes show off, his abilities. When talking to
Helen Stoner, her says ‘You have come by train I see… I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove.’ He then goes on to say that she went to the train station by dog-cart. ‘The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver.’
Holmes is presented as an observant and clever detective, which is the typical investigators role in a murder mystery. In Lamb to the Slaughter, the detectives don’t notice much, and they don’t seem very smart or experienced.
You can see they may be a bit stupid when Mrs Maloney is talking to them on the phone
“Quick! Come quick! Patrick’s dead!”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Mrs Maloney. Mrs Patrick Maloney.”
“You mean Patrick Maloney’s dead?” This last sentence shows that they may be just a bit on the slow side.
The main detective in the story- although there are three others there- is Sergeant Jack Noonan. He is definitely not observant or clever. Firstly, he allows Mrs Maloney to persuade him to drink some whiskey while on duty. This makes him notice less. 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. His phrase for cases like this one was ‘Get the weapon, you’ve got the man’, He orders his men to search for the weapon for six hours, even though if it had been an attack like he suggests, it is more likely the murderer would have taken the weapon with him for a way, then buried it or hidden it somewhere. It shows he doesn’t think Like Holmes and he doesn’t think about why, whereas Holmes wonders about the motive.
He’s kind to Mrs Maloney because he knows her, but Holmes probably wouldn’t be kind to her, if there were a possibility she might have killed her husband.
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 stories are set in two different times, and the clues that reflect the time period are: The Speckled Band was associated with Sherlock Holmes and we think of him from a certain time period because that was when he was about. The Lamb to the Slaughter story gives us a few clues as to it is set in a more recent time period, I think this is because the language the author uses and because of the homely house, and the pregnant woman staying in from work, cooking her husbands dinner, it makes the setting seem more modern.
The setting of The Speckled Band is one of typical type because it is set around a scary house (Stoke Moran), old, the kind you would imagine to be haunted and that is one in which you imagine a murder mystery story to take place. The Lamb to the Slaughter story doesn’t fit into these categories in my opinion because it is set in a nice surrounding i.e. the house; we know this because it is described as a nice, warm, cosy, household. I think the homely atmosphere helps with the alibi because it isn’t the type of place you would have thought a murder would take place. Mrs Maloney is probably a housewife, and a pregnant one, it doesn’t seem at all likely this is the house, in which a murder would live and kill. The police investigators wouldn’t have known about the troubles the couples were having, and would give the policemen the wrong idea. All they would have known is the successful policeman husband and his pregnant wife, supposedly happily married. I think the setting almost mirror the characters, Stoke Moran, being old, scary, mean looking, almost evil, reflecting on the murderers personality, and the cosy, warm, typical nice household reflecting Mrs Mary Maloney.
The stories are set in quite a different manner i.e. The Speckled Band is written from a first person perspective, where Watson describes one of his cases. Lamb to the Slaughter is set as a narrative perspective where it’s like an onlooker describes the events. The Sherlock Holmes is a classic “whodunit” because it is narrated but without the author telling us who the killer is, it is seen from Holmes and Watson’s point of view. I think the reason why the stories concentrate on different things is because Roald Dahl wanted to concentrate on a different aspect of crime. The narrator doesn’t seem to know everything in the Lamb to the Slaughter because if he did I think he would give us an insight as to what the victim and murderer are thinking a bit more. I don’t think the author in The Speckled Band lets us know what is happening on purpose. I think readers are forced to try and figure out the mystery when reading murder mysteries.
There aren’t many similarities in the stories in the aspect of language because they are written in different time periods, so they are probably written with the mannerisms of that particular time. I think the stories are meant to be taken seriously, but they do have odd ways of violence in them, for example the way the husband is killed with a leg of lamb, it’s not to unbelievable but it’s an unusual way of killing someone. Although The Speckled Band is a typical “whodunnit” story because the readers aren’t given too many clues and are left in the dark as much as the characters. It is meant to be figured out as the story goes along, and it follows these criteria. I think both of the stories have quite a lot of detail about the surrounding, but not to much of the type of person like the murderer, as the writers don’t want to give to much away. The Speckled Band is obviously the “whodunit” story as we are unable to figure it out until the end where the detective/inspector tells the audience. Lamb to the Slaughter takes us through the series of events, so we know exactly what is happening and there is no question as to who the murderer is. Dahl makes us smile when he tells us that the husband is murdered with a leg of lamb, which is quite an unusual and unexpected way to kill someone. Also when he describes Mary Maloney the murderer as saying, “Alright, so I’ve killed him”. It seems a bit out of the ordinary to be so calm after killing someone, and doesn’t sound like her, it’s not something you would expect her to do and say. It’s not in her routine which in the story it seems to us that she and maybe her husband value a lot.
I think that Holmes speaks like the perfect gentlemen because that is how men were bought up to speak in those times. I think Mary Maloney uses language to manipulate the detectives, fooling them into believing that she’s also a victim and is defenceless and just a woman not capable of murder, and knowing them helps her with this. I think Lamb to The Slaughter ending shocked me a bit when she started giggling, it indicated that she has maybe gone a bit mad. The Speckled Band ending was a surprise about the snake although the audience suspected Dr Roylott was capable of murder. The endings help us understand the titles of the stories because “The Speckled Band” was referring to the snake that Dr Roylott used to kill one of his daughters and then himself accidentally. Lamb to the Slaughter was referring to the Leg of Lamb that the husband was killed with.
I enjoyed The Speckled Band more, I like murder mysteries, it adds to the suspense because it makes us want to keep reading, it makes the story more interesting, rather than just telling us what happens as it happens. I liked the style to, as it was written by a first person prospective, we are told everything that the inspectors see, which I think makes good writing. In my opinion, The Speckled Band is more compelling because it fits the murder mystery genre more and that’s what I like, and of course the use of first person perspective.
There are quite a lot of differences between these stories, initially with the way they are written, how the murder happens and why it happens. Although there are some similarities too. They are both unusual murders and both for a silly reason in my opinion. They are both successful too; well Dr Roylott would have probably got away with it, had he not been himself killed. Stories have changed a lot from Victorian times to modern times, i.e. horror stories are no longer confined to dark, scary, remote houses, and suspicious characters, Dahl proved that even the most unlikely a murderer can kill. Stories are written from a different perspective, given a new look, and detectives that aren’t quite as sharp. Both stories were well written even though they were quite different. I do think however that murder stories should be written when the audience knows just about as much as the story characters.
