Comparing and Contrasting The Speckled Band and The Lamb to the Slaughter

The speckled band and the lamb to the slaughter are both a comparison of two short stories from the murder mystery genre. The speckled band was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (in 1892 and was published in the following year). The lamb to the slaughter was written by the famous Roald Dahl (in 1953). Arthur was a Scottish physician and writer, he wrote a series of books featuring Sherlock Holmes and his side-Kick Dr. Watson. The stories were a big hit, the speckled band was also one of his adventurous chronicles. The lamb to the slaughter was a story written for older children and was also, satisfactory. Roald Dahl was an author and an intelligence officer –he was most famous for his great storytelling-His short stories are known for their unexpected endings and his children’s books for their unsentimental, often dark humour.

A story from the murder mystery genre is a narrative about a murder and how the murder is discovered. The following things usually happen, or are present in a murder mystery: investigation, red herrings, tension, detection, solutions, resolution and justice. They have a very gradual introduction in the context of storyline and the characters, it then slowly builds up to the piercing plot, with a conspiratorial twist, when finished, everything is more likely to fall in place or you could even let it go as cliff-hanger.

Other differences are in the way the characters are depicted. In 'Lamb to the Slaughter the main character, Mary Maloney, is described as a quiet peaceful person. The writer also indicates that she is pregnant, ' with a sixth month child.' With this description, you would not think of Mary as being a 'typical killer'. What people consider a typical killer is someone like Grimsby Roylott who i...

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... unintended victim himself, therefore the story makes you feel as if it attained a certain irony in its ending, which proves to be something atypical.

Alternatively, in the lamb to the slaughter Mary turned out to be more devious and deceptive. She had known a little about criminal activity as she was a police officer’s wife, she had planned and plotted everything from creating an alibi to how she was going to act after the crime. Considering Mary’s unintentional act, I think she did not deserve to be punished for her actions

In conclusion, I prefer The Lamb To The Slaughter more so than The Speckled Band, the reason being, that the speckled band was more serious and had more connected as well as rounded characters, whereas The Lamb to the slaughter was full of suspense, thrills and dark hidden humour proving to be a fun read with a limited degree of reality.