Lamb To The Slaughter and The Speckled Band

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English Coursework

By Martin Halstead

    Lamb To The Slaughter and The Speckled Band are two murder stories taken from two very different perspectives. Lamb to the slaughter is by Roald Dahl set in the 1950’s it tells the story of a pregnant house wife who waits at home everyday longing for her husband to return from work so that she might have some company, her name is Mrs Maloney. The impression we get from here is almost that of a victim and the reader is taken completely by surprise when she reacts to her husband’s cold heartedness one night. Mr Maloney comes back from work and seems to have other things on his mind, he seems cold and bitter about something. Mrs Maloney tries to be amiable to him as she tries to carry on as normal, then he comes out with it, he wants a divorce.  She sit there for a while and then just as before tries to carry on normally. She offer’s him a leg of lamb for supper, but after he snaps at her she takes drastic action. Grabbing the leg of lamb she swings it round on hits him on the head killing him instantly. Suddenly this woman who we almost see as wet and weak gains some attitude. She is no longer the victim, she is now the hunter!

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     The Speckled Band comes from the other side of the spectrum completely, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle it is set in 1883 and follows a most perplexing mystery with that most famous of detectives, Sherlock Holmes. Unlike Lamb To The Slaughter this is a classic murder mystery written in a very different style, very much in the period it was written.

     

    The story follows Holmes on a mystery with bizarre twists. When Holmes is approached by Helen Stoner, a young women who is due to get married shortly about certain strange ...

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