Lamb to the slaughter written by Roald Dahl and the Speckled Band a Sherlock Holmes story written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

In the story they do very different things Mary is in control and active while Helen is looking to men to sort out her problems. Mary plays the perfect wife, but she is capable of murder. Helen who is innocent looks scared and nervous almost appears guilty. We believe that Helen is innocent because she helps the detectives while Mary succeeds in fooling them.

Mary is given a lot of sympathy as her husband has just been found dead we know this because she is offered to stay in the detectives house, which she refuses, Sherlock Holmes treats Helen differently even though she is innocent he takes charge of the situation and he tells her what to do and to wait for him which she does this shows that Helen didn’t think for herself much this is to do with the fact that they where written at different times one in the twentieth century and one pre twentieth century.

Mary covers her tracks well by going to the grocers and to cook the meat. She loved her husband we know this because she sits up waiting for him to come home and by how she insists on cooing supper for him. She seems unbalanced as she is shocked by the news her husband has just given her. She acts as though it was nothing to do with her as if she had mentally blocked it out. Helen is not that clever as she doesn’t notice things which should be obvious like being followed and the bell pull. Helen also needs the help of a man to sort everything out for her.

In conclusion Helen and Mary are two different people living in different times. One is guilty one is innocent. The stories were written 100 years apart and the attitudes have changed towards women, which is why they are shown differently. Mary is a cunning murder while Helen needs a man.

I prefer the lamb to the slaughter because I like the way Mary got her own back on her husband and that the detectives ate the murder weapon at the end.