In this essay I am going to be comparing and contrasting two short stories, 'Lamb To The Slaughter' by Roald Dahl and 'The Speckled Band' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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Comparison Essay

In this essay I am going to be comparing and contrasting two short stories, ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ by Roald Dahl and ‘The Speckled Band’ by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I will comment on used techniques and how the two stories are similar and different.

Both of the stories have ingredients to make them detective stories. Both have a murderer, a weapon and a motive however ‘The Speckled Band’ is very typical of the detective story genre, and ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ is not what is expected in this genre.

The first similarity that I notice when reading these two stories is that both of the titles include the murder weapon. In ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ a leg of lamb is the murder weapon. This is actually fairly ironic because when I first read the title it sounds as if the ‘Lamb’ would be an innocent victim. In ‘The Speckled Band’ the speckled band is a snake and is the murder weapon. This title can be very misleading as ‘Band’ has a lot of different meanings and most people wouldn’t know that the speckled band is a snake.

One of the most obvious differences in these two stories is the use of technique. In Roald Dahl’s ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ the story revolves around Mrs Mary Maloney, a happily loving pregnant glowing housewife who turns out to be a psychopathic killer ‘Her sixth month with child’. This is very uncommon in the detective genre because most stories would either revolve around the victims or the detectives investigating the murder. With using this technique it makes it hard for the reader to have any idea about what the end of the story is going to be like. In ‘The Speckled Band’ Conan-Doyle uses a more common technique and has his story revolving around the detective, Sherlock Holmes. I am guessing that writers quite often prefer this technique as it leaves them with an opportunity to write a sequel.

Even though ‘The Speckled Band’ revolves around Sherlock Holmes it is a first person narration as we hear all about Holmes through the eyes of Dr. Watson, his partner helping him with the detective work. Dr. Watson isn’t a very smart character, which is useful to the writer because it gives him an opportunity to explain more things when Sherlock has to explain them to Watson. In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ a third person narration is used which is omniscient however the focus always remains on Mary Maloney’s thoughts, emotions and perceptions.

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Another important comparison between the stories would be to notice the scenes and settings. In ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ there is one main setting which is the Maloney household and all of the action takes place on a Thursday evening, ‘Home from work Thursday’. At the beginning of the story the house is peaceful and tidy, ‘The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight, hers and the one by the empty chair opposite.’ This description makes it an unusual place for a murder to happen, not very typical of the mystery genre. Also all ...

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