Compare and contrast Lamb to the Slaughter and The Speckled Band.

Compare and contrast Lamb to the Slaughter and The Speckled Band.

To what extent are they typical of murder mystery stories?

In my opinion a typical murder mystery is one where it keeps you

reading in anticipation wanting to know who has committed the well

planed out murder, the whole way through. Until the end where the

clever detective (who is usually quite an old man, dressed in a smart

tweed suit) goes through one by one all of the suspects telling them

exactly why they could have committed the murder, but then why they

didn't. He then confronts the real murderer who is normally the one

everyone least suspects. This all takes place in a large country manor

where lots of people would have been busying round but for the

murderer, conveniently there are never any witnesses to the crime. The

murder is most often well planed out, with a devious reason behind it.

The two stories are both very different and mainly the only

similarities are that they are both about murders that are done by

people that are close family to the victims they murder in there own

homes.7

The settings in both of them are very different; in lamb to the

slaughter the setting is in a normal home in a small village, where

normal family life goes on. To begin with everything is going fine and

things are going on the same, as they would do every other day. The

husband has just got home from work and his wife asks him how his day

has been

'Hullo darling' she says and then gets him a drink. The fact it is

just like every other day shows in the relaxed atmosphere, which is

described as 'a blissful time of day'

The atmosphere also seams to be warm and cosy as she was 'luxuriating

in his company'

Where as in the Speckled Band the setting is really as you would

expected a murder mystery setting to be. This shows as at the start

there is an air of panic as Watson and Holmes have been 'knocked up'

as 'a young lady had arrived in a considerable state of excitement'

The murder setting is also typical as it is in a large country manor,

owned by the well-known Surry Family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran.

But unlike an average murder mystery there wouldn't be an awful lot of

people around to be suspects, as only the two stepdaughters and their

father were in the house. Although there wasn't a lot of atmosphere

after the opening part of the story, as there is just a woman telling