In my essay I will be comparing the two short stories Lamb to the
Slaughter by Roald Dahl and The Signalman by Charles Dickens.
Comparing Short Stories
In my essay I will be comparing the two short stories 'Lamb
to the Slaughter' by Roald Dahl and 'The Signalman' by Charles
Dickens. They both contain a twist in the tale and use the Macabre
Tale Genre.
The scenes are very different from on another and show different uses
of language as Lamb to the slaughter uses 1900 text and The Signalman
uses 20th Century text.
The opening of Lamb to the slaughter gives the reader no reason to
believe anything bad is going to happen. It starts off normal and uses
words such as warm, clean and tranquil to paint the picture of the
house being calm and a nice place. Though at the beginning of The
Signalman it gives words such as gloomy and angry sunset to portray it
is quite a scary maybe a dark and cold place. The Signalman is set in a
'Signal-box by a gloomy railway cutting with its dark tunnel'
Lamb to the slaughter, being set in a house is completely different
and delivers more of a calm and peaceful atmosphere. They don't seem
to have many similarities.
The theme to The Signalman is that of a man describing his experience
of meeting a Signalman being haunted by a ghost. This ghost seemed to
be warning him of hid death. It involves the two main characters, the
narrator and the signalman. The Signalman described by the narrator,
'His attitude was one of such expectation and watchfulness'
The narrator is not described throughout the story. The theme to Lamb
to the slaughter is that of a husband and his wife. It is set in their
house and their wife murders her husband with a leg of lamb. It is a
story that tells us of how she tries to cover up the murder and tries
to get the blame away from her and destroys all the evidence. The wife
is described as,
'Her skin had acquired a wonderful translucent quality, the mouth was
soft, and the eyes with their new placid look, seemed larger, darker
than before.'
The husband is described as having
'A warm male glow that came out of him'
And the
'Far look in his eyes when they rested on her, the funny slope of the
mouth.'
These are things that the writer has written that the wife thinks
about Patrick, her husband. I like the character of the wife because I
like the way she covers up her murdering her husband.
First, “Lamb to the Slaughter”, Mary Malony. She killed her husband when he said he was going to leave her and her baby all alone. I guess she couldn’t bare the thought of him leaving her all alone like that so she just killed him with their dinner. “At that point, Mary Maloney simply walked up
In Lamb to the Slaughter, Mary Maloney, doting housewife pregnant with her first child, commits a heinous crime against her husband. After he tells her that he is leaving, she become distraught and strikes him in the head with a leg of lamb. Afterwards, Mary...
Discovery can encompass the experience of facing confronting and meaningful situations that have the potential to alter an individual’s perspective of the world around them. The texts Go Back To Where You Came From (2011), The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, adapted as a film by Brian Percival (2013), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960) and I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) explore the universal experience of discovery through the outcome of emotional and intellectual discoveries conveyed through the audience, purpose and context of the texts. The documentary series, Go Back to Where You Came From explores the notion of discovery though its audience, purpose and context as the authentic refugee experience encourages the audience
“Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl captivates readers as they follow the story of how a loving wife turns into a merciless killer. This passage is told from the point
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek to find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
Lamb to the Slaughter, by Roald Dahl, instantly grabs a reader’s attention with its grotesque title, ensuing someone’s downfall or failure. The saying “lamb to the slaughter,” usually refers to an innocent person who is ignorantly led to his or her failure. This particular short story describes a betrayal in which how a woman brutally kills her husband after he tells her that he wants a divorce. She then persuades the policemen who rush to the scene to consume the evidence. This action and Patrick’s actions show the theme of betrayal throughout the story which Roald Dahl portrays through the use of point of view, symbolism and black humor.
elements and devices, perhaps one of the most important is through the representation of characters. By developing characters, novelists can express ideas as well as commentaries, and this can be further enriched by providing a foil. Conventionally defined as another character who contrasts with the main character, a foil helps emphasize the attributes of the latter while strengthening the message of the story. The two novels that feature foils discussed in the past 4 years are Jane Austen’s 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice and Kate Chopin’s 1899 novel The Awakening. In the novels The Awakening and Pride and Prejudice the characteristic foils that are encountered with Edna Pontellier and Adele Ratignolle flow with Charlotte Lucas and Elizabeth Bennet, as they ignite their individual qualities that not only contrast with each other but by comparison aid in illustrating important themes regarding the life of submission and dependence that women led during the 19th century.
A young couple is murdered in the middle of the night. The next night a single mother of
In Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, and The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, Shares the same message behind the concepts of Choices, Dreams and Tragedy. First, both literature shares the same theme known as Choices. The poem by Robert Frost, Narrator said “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by,” As the reader can see this poem centers with the choices. The path in this poem can seen as just ordinary road, however Frost actually represents these roads as the life choices. And he decided to take the one less traveled by. Same goes for Christopher McCandless. He didn’t choose the ordinary road just like other else. And rather, he chose the less traveled path to “experiences, the memories, the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meaning is found.” (page 37) Second, both written works
me show her as a typical wife waiting for her husband to come home and
Of the extraordinary amount of literary devices available to authors, Charles Dickens uses quite a few in his novel A Tale of Two Cities, which is set during the French Revolution. One of his more distinctive devices is character foils. The five sets of foils are Carton and Darnay, Carton and Stryver, Darnay and the Marquis de Evremonde, Madame Defarge, and Mr. Lorry and Jerry Cruncher. Dickens uses foil characters to highlight the virtues of several major characters in order to show the theme of personal, loving relationships having the ability to prevail over heartless violence and self-consuming vengeance.
The role of a woman remains the same throughout human history. Many women prepare for the role of wife and mother from an early age. If one is not married at a certain age then they are labeled as a spinster, a prude. Hedda Gabler and Emma Bovary fearful of being dubbed as a spinster, marry men whom they both despised. During the mid 1800’s, Emma Bovary’s period: women considered inferior to their male counterparts, they could not divorce their husbands, and their husbands essentially own them. Alas during Hedda Gabler’s setting, nothing changes. Because of their society, they are alienated individuals thwarted due to their social status, gender, and misguided intentions.
Stephen Crane’s short story, “The Open Boat” speaks directly to Jack London’s own story, “To Build A Fire” in their applications of naturalism and views on humanity. Both writers are pessimistic in their views of humanity and are acutely aware of the natural world. The representations of their characters show humans who believe that they are strong and can ably survive, but these characters many times overestimate themselves which can lead to an understanding of their own mortality as they face down death.
Most little old ladies bake cookies, the only thing the woman from the landlady is cooking up is death. The landlady went through many phases as serial killers do, specifically the wooing phase and the totem phase. It is In the wooing phase that she captures her victims, and it is in the totem phase where she does something with them after the murder is completed. The landlady went through both phases in the story. The landlady seemed nice at first but the truth eventually, would be uncovered.
From Boy to Man in Flight, by John Steinbeck and The Bear by William Faulkner