Comparing Lamb to the Slaughter to The Speckled Band
'Lamb to the Slaughter' and 'The Speckled Band' are both murder
mysteries. Like most murder mysteries each of the stories have a
murderer, a victim and characters acting in a suspicious or unusual
way.
'Lamb to the Slaughter' is a 20th century story about a woman called
Mary who kills her husband, Patrick Maloney, using a leg of lamb. This
seems quite surprising at first as she seems quite loving and devoted
to him- 'she loved to luxuriate in the presence of this man.' However
a lot of Mary Maloney's behaviour in the first scene does seem quite
worrying and peculiar. It seems that she is almost obsessed with her
husband and this is shown by the way she is constantly trying to
please him. Although the murder is a crime of passion Mrs Maloney
manages to deal with it quite well. She is very calculating when
realising quite what she has done and providing herself with a
convincing alibi. When the detectives arrive to investigate the murder
they seem to be taking it very seriously, however they don't really
seem to consider Mrs Maloney as a real suspect. There is one point in
the story where one of the detectives says
'acted quite normal very cheerful impossible that she' but this is
an idea which is soon discarded. After a while the attitude of the
detectives becomes more relaxed and not so professional. Mrs Maloney
takes advantage of this by asking the detectives to stay for dinner.
She then goes on to feed them the leg of lamb thus destroying the
evidence. There is a moment of irony towards the end because when
talking about the murder weapon one of the detectives says
'Probably right under our very nose' just as they are eating the leg
of lamb. ...
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...and' and 'Lamb to the Slaughter' are
very diverse. In 'Lamb to the Slaughter' Mr and Mrs Maloney both lived
in a 'warm and clean' home. The atmosphere is of a happy and content
household. In 'The Speckled Band' the murder takes place in an old,
grey, stone house. The setting seems colder and emptier. The fact that
Roylott keeps animals such as cheetahs and baboons adds a darker adds
a more sinister feel to the story. This is more typical of a murder
mystery but it may not have seemed so unusual when it was first
written in the 19th century. I think the author of ' Lamb to the
Slaughter' wants the reader to see Mrs Maloney as quite cunning and
deceitful. He does this by showing that Mrs Maloney can use the fact
that she was married to Mr Maloney and that she is six months pregnant
to her advantage. Holmes would probably not have fallen into this same
trap.
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.
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...
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...
.... Maloney would leave to be with the other women. This thought though, became a reality for Mary Maloney. Mary Maloney has testified to happening to “stumble across” a will, which mentioned Mary Maloney receiving three quarters of Patrick’s fortune if he were to pass away. Being the wife a detective, Mary Maloney new how to plot a scene. First she would murder Patrick, receive his fortune to care for the unborn child, never have to face him again after he said to her face that he loved another women and had been having affairs with her. Secondly, she would need to dispose of the murder weapon secretly, and create an alibi that would testify for Ms. Maloney. Thirdly, pretend that it was all a dream and that it never happened. Sadly, it was an incredibly easy task for a clever woman such as herself. How is it that money is what shapes our world but also destroys it?
It was a normal evening in the Maloney home. Mrs. Mary Maloney sat sewing, while waiting for her husband to return home after an involved day as a police officer. Around 5 o’clock Mr. Maloney returns home with shocking news and… Bang! …a leg of lamb hit over his head and Mr. Maloney falls to the ground dead. All evidence and theories, point to Mrs. Maloney being the killer of her husband, but why? Mrs. Maloney did not kill her husband out of anger after the recent marriage incident, but she did it as a result of mental anguish, self defense and trauma inflicted upon her by her husband. All these events explain exactly why Mrs. Maloney murdered her husband out of reasonable measures.
In Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter” Mary Maloney is put in this exact situation. Mary ends up killing her husband with a leg of lamb because of the news he told her. The question being asked is Mary Maloney a psychopath or is she just a normal housewife driven to extreme measures?. She waited eagerly for her husband to come home from work, she truly cared about him she didn't really have to act, she also looked so upset when the policemen were talking to her, so those reasons make it clear that she was a normal housewife.
We refer to the murder as 'him' We can sense that Roylott is under more pressure; he has obviously decided to kill his stepdaughter for her riches that he can't make my being a doctor. Maloney has her husband's wage from his work, and the home will only need to be cleaned every couple of days. The text suggests that her husband is stressed. He has to tell Mary that he is leaving her. He leaves her with no explanation for his absence, only that he will pay for the baby's upbringing.
To illustrate, in the author’s words, “Why don’t you eat up that lamb that’s in the oven?” (Dahl, p. 324) In this quote the author proposes that Mary deceived the detectives into eating the murder weapon. This quote models the author’s use of character development as Mary went from the beginning of being good-natured and honest to deceitful. This brings the immoral evolution of Mary out. Moreover, the author plainly asserts, “And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to giggle.” (Dahl, p. 324) In this quote, the author describes how Mary laughed as the detectives ate the murder weapon. This quote reminds the reader that Mary is now “innocent” in a different sense than she was in the beginning of the story. “Perfect”, unaware, self-sacrificing, wife Mary is gone. Revealed to the readers is wicked, manipulative murderer
do not seem suitable to be human beings. He understands the things he does are
head. She might just have hit him with a steel club.' As you can see,
In "Lamb to the Slaughter" Roald Dahl uses the leg of lamb as a symbol of domesticity. The meat, which the primary intention of it was to be cooked and eaten, had mainly to do with the kitchen and women. When Mary used the leg of lamb to kill her husband, she turned a domestic tool into a tool for harm and murder. In this way, Mary challenged the domestic role the patriarchy of the time had placed her into. The leg of lamb also represents Mary, and the way she follows her husband, the same way a lamb follows a shepherd. The leg of lamb also alludes to the bible; in the way the Jesus was the Lamb and a martyr for Christians, the same way that Mary’s husband was a martyr for the patriarchate.
In the story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, Mary Maloney is shown to have a very sinister and manipulative character. In the beginning of the story, Mary Maloney was a normal, loving and caring pregnant housewife that loved and cared for her husband, Patrick Maloney, very much. Earlier at the start of the story we see Mary was waiting for her husband to come home from work. She had set up the house with two table lights lit and plates on the dining table so they can have a very romantic dinner when Patrick comes home. When Patrick came home, Mary was very excited to see him. She would try to offer him some drinks and insisted she would get things in the house he needed so he didn’t have to get up himself. The countless times that Patrick said no to her offers and helpful doings, she still tried to serve and tried to make him feel comfortable and relax after work.
One of Dahl's more popular short fiction stories for adults is "Lamb to the Slaughter." I am going to be using this story in my comparison against another Murder Mystery called "Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
An additional view point of the story could be from a woman. A female reading Lamb to the Slaughter would most likely side with Mary Maloney. Dahl starts the story describing Mary’s behavior before her husbands’ arrival. She sits ...
When the police arrived they try to understand and figure out how Patrick has been killed. But unluckily the officers can not notice Mrs. Maloney was the killer. At the end of the book Mary Maloney giggles when the officers said, “Probably right under our very noses. What you think, Jack?” (Dahl 18). Throughout the beginning, Mary Maloney seemed like a nice caring wife but what Patrick said caused her to do a crime. At that point, Mary knew she got away she eliminated the evidence and managed to escape. Mary laughing shows readers that the killing of her husband was not important to her at all. Therefore the theme of this story is to not trust everybody.