Comparing Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter and The Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle :: Roald Dahl Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Essays

Comparing Roald Dahl’s Lamb to the Slaughter and The Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Both ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ and ‘The Speckled Band’ is detective murder mysteries. They share some similarities but have many differences. In my essay I will discuss these and the effects they have on the story. Roald Dahl wrote ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ in 1954. It is much more modern than Conan Doyle’s ‘The Speckled Band’ of 1892. In ’Lamb to the Slaughter’ the main point to the story is to find out whether Mrs. Maloney will get away with committing a murder. Dahl also tries to illustrate that appearances can be deceptive. However, in ‘The Speckled Band’ the reader continues to read the story to find out who the murderer was and whether Holmes will discover how the crime was committed. The stories are both murder mysteries yet their shapes are almost opposite. The setting of ‘The Speckled Band’ is a typical old mansion. ‘The manor house is very old’. This lends an atmosphere of foreboding and suspense to the story. This is because it is natural to find dark and sinister places scary. Conan Doyle uses descriptions such as ‘A picture of ruin’, ‘Ill trimmed lawn’, ‘the building was of grey lichen-blotched stone’; to show this age. The setting is important in that the atmosphere and the suspense, which keeps the reader interested, are dependant upon this. In Victorian times, this type of setting would be more suited to the audience than that of a warm and cozy house. Conan Doyle was not challenging stereotypes, instead using them to his own advantage. However, in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ the scene of the crime is the complete opposite. ‘The room was warm and clean’. This causes the reader to feel relaxed without any suspicion that events such as a murder would occur. Roald Dahl uses this homely image ‘the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight’ to contrast sharply with the murder – shocking the reader – and to support the impression given by Mary Maloney’s character, so forcing the reader to challenge their preconceptions. Whereas great attention to the setting is given in ‘The Speckled Band’ it is no longer needed after the initial description in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ as suspense is built in different ways. This is a large difference between the two. The main character in ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ is Mary Maloney. Dahl spends a long time at the beginning of the story creating an impression of her as a loving wife and house-proud women. ‘Mary Maloney was waiting for her husband to come home’, ‘She took his coat