Formulaic Of The Murder Mystery Genre example essay topic

English Coursework Discuss the social and historical context of each text reflected in 'The Speckled Band' by Arthur Conan Doyle and 'Lamb to the Slaughter' by Roald Dahl. In this essay, I am going to compare and contrast the two short stories "The Speckled Band" by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, and "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl, picking out techniques used which make it exactly, or exactly the opposite of a typical detective story / murder mystery. Both "The Speckled Band" and "Lamb to the Slaughter" have ingredients for a detective story, i.e. they both have a cold murderer who is just a little mad. On the other hand, they are presented to us very differently, making one story very formulaic, and making the other very untypical of the murder mystery genre. But, both stories contain similar elements but different due to the time in which they are written. Both Conan-Doyle and Dahl use various techniques to make their stories more interesting; for example, in Dahl's "Lamb to the Slaughter" the story revolves around the character of Mrs Mary Maloney, loving housewife and psychopathic killer.

Normally, many stories concentrate on the detective or the victim, this story concentrates on the character of the murderer. This perspective helps with the telling of the murder, making it more unexpected. The story includes two major plot twists; the first being the murder itself, made unexpected by what we have seen of Mary Maloney's character, the second plot twist is at the end, where the detectives eat the murder weapon. Conan-Doyle used techniques in writing "The Speckled Band" also. His story revolves around the character of the detective, Sherlock Holmes.

The story is told as seen through the eyes of his companion, Dr Watson, providing a good example of writing in the first person. Unlike Dahl's story, "The Speckled Band" is a classic 'whodunit', and so, like many 'whodunits' there is suspense. Although both the stories have some of the typical components of a detective story, they are presented differently, differing noticeably in the setting, the characters and of course the plot, as I intend to show in this essay. In "The Speckled Band, the setting of the main part of the story is very formulaic of the murder mystery genre. The story is set in an old house. Just the look of it could make you think twice about going inside; after all, 'it could collapse on you any moment', as Dr Watson described.

The manor of Stoke Moran is the kind of place that you would expect to be the setting of a murder mystery, the Maloney residence is not. The setting for the story is a warm 1950's family home, belonging to Mr and Mrs Patrick Maloney. Dahl starts the story with a short description of the setting. 'The room was warm and clean, the curtains drawn, the two table lamps alight, hers and the one by the empty chair opposite. ' This description is not the typical setting for this type of story, and definitely nothing like the description of Stoke Moran. This technique makes the reader feels secure and unaware of what is eventually going to happen.

With the murderers, Conan-Doyle uses the formulaic character of Dr Roylott, a very violent man. You can assume that he is the murderer in this story just by the description Dr Watson gives of him. He describes Dr Roylott as 'a huge man', who possessed 'A large face seared with a thousand wrinkles and marked with every evil passion'. He has 'deep-set, bile shot eyes' and a 'high thin fleshless nose, (which) gave him the resemblance of a fierce bird of pray'.

Here Conan-Doyle uses animal imagery to great effect; he uses this to show the animal 'inside' Dr Roylott. Dr Roylott would seem to be evil from the start. In "Lamb to the Slaughter", the murderer is not so typical. In fact, Mrs Mary Maloney is the opposite of a murderer.

Dahl wrote this character as an anti-heroin she does not resemble a fierce bird of pray, but instead there is 'a slow smiling air about her and about everything she does'. Dahl goes on to describe her more, using phrases such as 'curiously tranquil', 'Her skin... had acquired a wonderful translucent quality,' and 'The eyes... seemed larger, darker than before' What makes her so untypical though is the fact that she is six months pregnant.