Comparison Between ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’.

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Comparison Between ‘The Speckled Band’ and ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’.

By Sean Robinson.

Roald Dahl wrote Lamb To The Slaughter in 1954. Roald Dahl was famous for writing Children’s Classic Novels. He is most famous for writing about people with strange characters.

          Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote the Speckled Band and it was published in 1982. In his stories the famous detective is Sherlock Holmes. I already know that this detective uses a magnifying glass and solves every crime.

          I know things aren’t right as the story is told by a narrator and that we are following the story through Mrs. Maloney’s’ eyes and how she feels. Mrs. Maloney talks as normal and acts normal. Mr. Maloney doesn’t chat as what I would feel as normally. From the story his drink on that night is quicker than normally, indicating that things aren’t right. A good example of this is;

Before he tells his wife the bad news about him leaving her ‘he arrives as punctual ever’. Which shows either he loves her dearly as a wife or that there is an urgently as ever to tell her something. He arrives and she tells him ‘Hullo darling’ and he replies ‘Hullo’. This shows me that he is tired or there is something on his mind. She says ‘Tired Darling?’ and he replies ‘Yes!’ He drinks unusually quickly, he goes for another and Mary offers to get it for him. He is offered some ‘cheese’ and then some ‘supper’. She tells him that she has ‘a leg of lamb’, and then she is told that he is leaving her. She walks up the stairs holding the ‘thin bone end of it’. As she enters the room he orders her not to make any for him as he is going out. He says it as ‘for gods sake’ which shows me that he is sick of her fussing over him. Then he says ‘don’t make supper for me, I’m going out’. This indicates that he is leaving her.

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          In ‘The Speckled Band’ the victim is Helen Stoner. In the story she is being described as being ‘timid’, scared and she seems to be in a state of shock. In the story it is noticed that ‘she has mud splashed all over her’. She is described to look as a ‘Hunted Animal’, which tells me that she is hiding something. A good quotation to show this is ‘It is not cold which makes me shiver’ this shows that she is scared of something, which scares her or makes her shake. I can tell this ...

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