In Lamb to the Slaughter Mary Maloney, the murderer is not a typical criminal figure. She is a housewife who is pregnant. She is cleverer than the detectives are. Skilled manipulator of people and situations e.g. she gets the detectives to eat the evidence. “Why don’t you eat the lamb that’s in the oven? It’ll be cooked just right by now.” She has no known history of violence unlike Dr. Roylott’s spontaneous act of murder. She’s happy, calm, loving unlike Dr. Roylott who is a bad-tempered, angry and aggressive man.
In Lamb to the Slaughter the victim is Patrick Maloney. Patrick Maloney is a detective himself. He, unlike Julia Stoner, never suspects that his life’s in danger. He is a salaried detective unlike Helen and Julia Stoner who have private money. He is not a prisoner in his own home but the man of the house e.g. Mary Maloney tends to his every need when he gets home from work. He is the victim of the ‘crime of passion’ whereas the murder of Julia Stoner is a lot more sinister and pre-meditated.
In The Speckled Band the victim is Julia Stoner. Assuming Julia and Helen have the same character. They are insecure. Helen Stoner has a mark to show abuse by her stepfather. She has very pale grey hair to show she is stressed. They are both upper-class people, they have private money. She is a prisoner in her own home and she is weak and independent.
In Lamb to the Slaughter we know who the murderer is at the beginning of the story whereas we have to wait till the end in The Speckled Band for Sherlock Holmes to find out that Dr. Roylott was responsible. In Lamb to the Slaughter the mystery is never solved, the murderer gets the better of the detectives.
The narrative climax comes at the beginning of Lamb to the Slaughter unlike in The Speckled Band, where it happens in the end. There is an added suspense in Lamb to the Slaughter – leading up to persuading the detectives to eat the evidence. The reader follows Mary Maloney carefully constructing an alibi.
In The Speckled Band we follow Sherlock Holmes putting the clues together. The writing in Lamb to the Slaughter is very sparse with little detailed description. The reader has to create the picture for himself, whereas Conan Doyle offers a lot more detailed descriptions of rooms, clothes, people and facial expressions.
Lamb to the Slaughter is set in 1950s. Set in a small suburban house that is part of a local community. It is a modern house, warm, cosy, well kept and has a loving environment. There are no animals in the house except dead processed packaged animals.
The Speckled Band however is set in the late Victorian era 1883 in a run down country house. It is big, isolated, in need of repair and the classic setting for a Victorian detective story. Unlike Lamb to the Slaughter where there are a reputation of dead animal parts, The Speckled Band features three wild animals; a baboon and a cheetah, which are allowed to run around freely, and a snake, which is locked up in a safe.
The Cultural and Social Context of the two stories are very different.
LTTS is set in Post War Britain. This is a world of new beginnings.
- The empire has shrunk rapidly in India.
- Internal Cultural Revolution of women’s rights.
- Post War Britain rise of power of the common man.
In The Speckled Band, Britain still ruled a third of the world. The struggle for women’s rights was only beginning and women still did not have the right to vote.
English society in the 1880s was very rigid; there was very little social mobility.
The Victorian era was an age of great confidence. This is reflected in the reader’s expectation that the mystery should be solved, whereas by the 1950s Britain had lost the empire and a lot of confidence. The reader does not expect the mystery to be solved.
The Speckled Band is written in formal language using what would be now considered as antiquated words. Conan Doyle offers lots of detailed description for example of houses what people are wearing. The sentences are often long, complex and full of sub-clauses.
In Lamb to the Slaughter the title is implied ‘pun’ (a play on the meaning of the word). The style of writing is sparse and uncluttered. The reader has to construct pictures for himself. The story is written with a dark humour.
In Lamb to the Slaughter the underlying message is that crime does not pay whereas in The Speckled Band crime does pay. In Lamb to the Slaughter the criminal is not necessarily evil, it is a crime of passion; she loses control of her emotions. She loses control of herself. She is not responsible of her crime, whereas Dr. Roylott’s murder is premeditated. He plans it very carefully e.g. he gets builders to make a hole in Helen Stoner’s room so she moves to her sisters room where the bed is nailed to the floor near a ventilator so the snake he uses can drop on the bed and bite the victim when they are asleep.
The main ingredient of a detective story is that the villain is caught and justice is achieved. This happens in ‘The Speckled Band’, with the poetic justice of Dr Roylott’s death, but in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ it doesn’t, and the villain gets off “scot-free”. Even if they had found her out, they wouldn’t have any evidence. The main ingredient is missing in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’, but even so, that doesn’t make the story any worse.
In writing this essay I have learned that these two are very different from each other for many reasons, the first being that because they were written in two different centuries.
