“Mary Maloney simply walked up behind him and without any pause she swung the big frozen leg of lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head” which is not typical of a murder mystery at all. On the other hand “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Conan Doyle does follow the basic storyline and conventions of most other stories in the murder mystery genre.
I think that the setting of any story is very important but especially in a murder mystery because if you have a really sinister murder taking place in a circus it’s just not going to work. The location can add suspense, tension and a lot of other effects to a story. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” is set in a big country house, this is very typical of a murder mystery at the start of this genre because at that time (1892) murder mysteries were almost always set amongst aristocrats and the higher class rich people, and this is definitely the case in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”. The location plays a big part in the storyline of this story for a number of reasons. Firstly it adds a great deal of tension to the story, an example of this is when Holmes and Watson are walking through the grounds of Dr Roylott’s mansion.
“Making our way among the trees, we reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about to enter through the window”
Secondly, the whole murder is built around the layout of the building. “Lamb to the Slaughter” is set in a typical 1950’s house. In the beginning of the story it helps to build up suspense, but in a less obvious way than in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”. Instead of using eeriness and a sense of danger that is used in Conan Doyle’s story, it uses the fact that is completely normal and nothing out of the ordinary.
Mary Maloney is most definitely not the sort of murderer that you would expect to find in a murder mystery. Dahl describes her as being six months pregnant, “having big eyes, a soft mouth and slightly translucent skin.” Also she loves her husband (the victim in this story) very much, you can see this by the way that she eagerly waits for him to come home every evening.
“merely to please herself with the thought that each minute gone by made it nearer the time when he would come.”
I think that he does this in order to make the readers feel more sympathetic towards her. This tries to counteract our instinct of wanting the murderer to be caught and punished. Another way in which Roald Dahl manipulates us into having sympathy for Mary Maloney is by going to great lengths to describe the way she looks, acts and her personality. Doing this establishes her as the main character in the story, so as we know most about this character, she becomes our favourite and the one that we hove the most feelings towards. To help this Roald Dahl also spends very little time describing the looks and characteristics of Mr Maloney (the victim). This means that it is very hard to relate to him and as we know very little about him, we don’t care about him that much. As we don’t care for or relate to him it makes his murder seem a lot less horrific. However, the villain/murderer in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” Dr Roylott fits the profile of a typical murderer very well, he is tall, strong, wears black, is evil looking and carries a hunting crop, he is also described by Conan Doyle as having
“a thousand wrinkles”
“bile-shot eyes” and a
“fleshless nose”
This description makes you have no sympathy whatsoever for Dr Roylott, it just makes you dislike him even more than you did before we knew what he looked like. By giving us this information, Conan Doyle is trying to make us not only hate, but despise Dr Roylott. We now know that he has not only a dangerous personality but that he looks about as evil as you can get without having horns growing out of your head.
In Conan Doyle’s “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” The investigation of the murder is very typical of murder mysteries of that time period. Holmes and Watson are very clever and intelligent, they solve the murder and save Helen Stoner. In the 1890’s the police were very highly thought of and well respected, I don’t think that many people would have liked the story if the police were disrespected in any way. In contrast to that, in “Lamb to the Slaughter” the police investigation into the murder is completely different. The police acted extremely unprofessionally, they let their personal relationship with Mary Maloney get in the way of their investigation. They are described by Dahl as rude, lazy and very unintelligent
“One of them belched”
“Their voices thick and sloppy because their mouths were full”
This shows that they are not at all professional, If they are eating dinner with the victim’s wife and showing appalling manners. The police don’t solve the murder in “Lamb to the Slaughter”. In fact they are manipulated into eating the only evidence (the murder weapon which is a leg of lamb) and so destroying any chance they had of catching Mary Maloney. This would have been much more acceptable at the time it was written than if it was written at the same time as “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” because of the changed views and beliefs of the public about the police. I this is because at the time when Conan Doyle wrote “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, the police were given a lot of respect by the public and I think that the story would not have gone down as well with the general public if there was anything disrespectful towards the police in it.
The weapons used to commit the murder in both of these stories were very unusual and are not at all typical of murder mysteries. Also it was the murder weapons that created the twist in the tale for both “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”. The use of a leg of lamb as the murder weapon in “Lamb to the Slaughter” was a very original idea. It served a several purposes, the first was to add a bit of humour into the story and the second was to provide the twist in the tale, which was Mary Maloney getting the police to eat it at the end so she could get away with it. In “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” the use of a snake as the murder weapon was very unique. It made it so that no one was expecting it and you couldn’t guess how the murder was committed when you’re only half way through the book, like you can with some murder mysteries. It also provided the twist in the tale by killing the murderer, which made for a very ironic ending to the story considering that he had used that snake to try and kill Helen Stoner with.
The mood in “Lamb to the Slaughter” is not very tense, there is a lot of humour involved and I think that that is definitely the way that Dahl wanted it to be. Although there is a bit of suspense, when the police are in Mary Maloney’s house, you are wondering whether she will get away with the murder or not. The moments leading up to the murder are not really that tense because you do not expect Mary Maloney who at the time is acting quite calmly to do something as absurd as hitting her husband with a leg of lamb. However “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” only uses humour slightly, and does not make it the main theme of the story. There is an atmosphere of seriousness and tension, especially when Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson spend the night in Helen Stoner’s bedroom, waiting for Dr Roylott to make his murder attempt. Here are some quotes to show this.
"The least sound would be fatal to our plans."
"Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your pistol ready in case we should need it”
“I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath”
My conclusion is that both “Lamb to the Slaughter” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” are good and effective murder mysteries, but in extremely different ways. I enjoyed the aspect of humour and absurdity in “Lamb to the Slaughter”. I liked the whole storyline of it and how the police ate the evidence at the end. In “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” I enjoyed the challenge of reading it, it was a lot harder to read than “Lamb to the Slaughter”, I also enjoyed trying to figure out how the murder took place for myself. It is a clever and very well thought out story that made me really want to find out how Dr Roylott did it! If I had to pick a favourite out of the two stories it would probably be “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, mainly because of the extra challenge it posed to the reader.