The following essay was written for my GCSE English course in October 2000 and contrasts Arthur Conan Doyle’s short Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” with Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter.” It is roughly 1900 words long, and comes with a tip of the hat to Ms Roberts (presumably formally) of Ryburn Valley High School. It’s released here under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales Licence.
Explain what makes A. C. Doyle’s ‘The Speckled Band’ typical of the nineteenth century detective story genre, and how does Roald Dahl’s ‘Lamb to the Slaughter’ subvert this genre?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories changed the set pattern of the nineteenth century detective story. Prior to Doyle’s stories the detective had to wait for the criminal to make a mistake for them to be caught. However, Sherlock Holmes was the first of the detectives to work out who the murderer was by his own deduction, this new idea was introduced with the publication of A. C. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories in ‘The Strand’ magazine. [read more]