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 of this adds to the readers surprise when she turns out to be the murderer as she is shown even more as a dutiful housewife. There is also one minor setting which is the trip to the grocery and it is used as her alibi.
The settings in ‘The Speckled Band’ are more typical of the murder mystery genre. There are two main settings the first one being the Baker Street flat in the early morning. The second setting is Stoke Moran, the Roylott family estate near Leatherhead in Surrey. We were given a description of Stoke Moran by Dr Watson, ‘in one of the wings the windows were broken, and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin.’ In this genre it can be seen as a very typical, scary scene where a murder can take place. I am guessing it takes place in the afternoon and goes on until the early hours of the next morning, so unlike it all happening in one evening the story takes place over the period of roughly 24 hours.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ Conan-Doyle uses a more traditional type character as the murderer, which in a way makes it easier for the reader to predict what may happen. His name is Dr. Roylott who we find out had a bad temper and can be very violent. One way he is described is ‘A large face seared with a thousand wrinkles and marked with every evil passion’. This may give the reader a little insight into the character on what his personality may be like, and because he is described as evil the reader will immediately suspect him capable of murder.
Once Dr Roylott moved to Stoke Moran he secluded himself and ‘he shut himself up in his house, and seldom came out, save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path.’ When people get lonely and feel like they are not wanted by anyone, especially if a loved one dies, they may act angry so people are fearful of them in order to give them reasons not to get close to anyone else. We know Dr Roylotts wife died because Helen Stoner says ‘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.’
‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is however not typical of the mystery genre at all. Mrs Maloney was a loving housewife expecting a baby and you would never expect her to turn out to be the murderer. We are told that there is ‘a slow smiling air about her and about everything she does’. Dahl goes on to describe her more, using phrases such as ‘curiously tranquil’ and ‘Her skin… had acquired a wonderful translucent quality’. This makes her so untypical as she is pregnant and would in no way expect her to be the murderer. In fact you would be most likely to think of her as a victim. The story includes two major plot twists and the first not is the murder itself as someone who is perceived to be sweet and innocent commits it. The other one is how she gets rid of the murder weapon and covers her tracks, it’s almost as if she may have done this sort of thing before.
I personally find ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ to be a more interesting story as I find it less predictable. Mary Maloney is the better villain I would say as when she murdered her husband her persona just completely changed, ‘ at that point… simply walked up behind him and without any pause… swung the frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head’. She did this, as an act of revenge and all she thought afterwards was ‘Alright… so I’ve killed him’. Then she cleverly manages to play the distraught wife after having to hide what she did when taking the trip to the grocery store in order to create an alibi for herself.
Then when she is talking to the police she manages to stay rational and is able to act totally innocent whereas Dr Roylott was always acting if he was guilty. Mary Maloney is able to manipulate the police because she is seen by them as the distraught, loving wife and she entices them to have a glass of whiskey which in turn leads them to sitting at the table and eating the murder weapon, the leg of lamb. Generally in the mystery genre the murderer is found out but I love the way Dahl makes is so she gets away with what she did.
In ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ Mrs Mary Maloney is truly in a state of shock when she kills her husband because he tells her he is leaving her while she is pregnant. He treated her dismissively and she felt betrayed so when she got angry and frustrated Mary unintentionally succeeded in murdering Patrick Maloney. Dr. Roylott was however cold blooded and had a motive for wanting to kill both of his stepdaughters. When one sister is killed the other sister goes to Holmes for help and he ends up discovering a will left by their mother. She agreed that all of her fortunes were to go to Dr. Roylott yet ‘each daughter can claim an income of £250, in case of marriage.’ This would have to be paid yearly and in the time this story was set that was worth a lot more than it is now. So when the first sister announced she was engaged and was to be married, Dr. Roylott murdered her so that he could keep the money. Then the sister left, Helen Stoner, announced the same thing and Dr. Roylott attempted to murder her as well.
Helen Stoner is a more traditional victim in this genre as she is scared and looking for help from a detective. You would not think of Patrick Maloney as the typical victim as he is a member of the police force and people therefore assume he is more able to take care of himself.
Then the other characters, Holmes in ‘The Speckled Band’ and the police in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. Holmes is portrayed as very confident, observant, intelligent and committed to his line of work. This is the most common form of detective. Then in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the police seem very unobservant and not very intelligent. We first get this impression when Mary Maloney makes the phone call to the police station, ‘You mean Patrick Maloney’s dead?’ This shows they were a bit slow on gathering the nature of the phone call reporting his death. Then Sergeant Jack Noonan makes another big mistake by thinking about things in a stereotypical view. He assumes that because Patrick’s cause of death was due to a blow to the head by a heavy, blunt object that a woman may not have been able to lift it. He was the one who thought ‘Get the weapon, you’ve got the man’. I think that also because the sergeant was a friend of the couple he would never want to suspect her of doing something so awful. In the end Holmes is able to solve his case and the police in Dahl’s story are not.
In ‘The Speckled Band’ Roylotts crimes are discovered and he ends up paying for them with his own painful death by his murder weapon the snake, poetic justice. This again is a very typical thing to happen, he got his just deserts, what he deserved. I find this too predictable and it bores me more.
I do completely favour the ending of ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. It is very manipulative and ironic. Once the police sit down to eat the leg of lamb that looks like a club and had just come out of the oven, Mrs. Maloney on her own in the other room starts to giggle to herself. The detectives think nothing about the leg of lamb itself just of what Mary Maloney wanted. ‘Have some more Charlie?’ ‘No. Better not finish it’. ‘She wants us to finish it. She said so. Be doing her a favour’. ‘Okay then give me some more… Personally, I think (the weapon’s) right here on the premises’. ‘Probably right under our very noses. What do you think Jack?’
‘And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle’
This giggle may mean many things, it could be a sign of her going slightly insane, she may have just been laughing at the whole irony of the situation or she may have been feeling gratified as she triumphed over the police and her husband.
Overall I greatly prefer ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’. I love the plot twists, I think that using the third person narration technique is very effective, and in this story there are fewer characters.