"You could get people wrong," Sandra realises in 'The Darkness Out There'. Assess how effectively Thomas Hardy and Penelope Lively explore this theme in their characterisation techniques.

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Wider Reading Unit

“You could get people wrong,” Sandra realises in ‘The Darkness Out There’. Assess how effectively Thomas Hardy and Penelope Lively explore this theme in their characterisation techniques.

“The Withered Arm” and “The Darkness Out There” are two different stories with a common theme. Both include main characters that change even though they are from different centuries and backgrounds.

“The Darkness Out There” is told through the eyes of Sandra, a girl going to help at the home of Mrs Rutter. Her views and ideas are immature and undeveloped, she only sees the surface of things and is quite naive. Towards the end of the story she realises these views are not realistic and her opinions change.

One of the best ways to learn about a character is found in the way they live. Mrs Rutter’s environment gives the overriding impression of a harmless old lady. Her house is homely, “filled with china ornaments” of safe, nice characters like “big flop-eared rabbits and beribboned kittens.” There are numerous mentions of flowers, which she likes, for example -

“She brought out a flowered tin...’Look at the little cornflowers. And the daisies.’”

These features are typical of a stereotyped old lady, who is deemed safe and trusted. However, in amongst the safe, innocent atmosphere, Penelope Lively briefly mentions “there was a smell of cabbage,” which hints there may be something more dark and sinister about the place.

In the earlier stages of the story, Lively depicts Mrs Rutter as a generous, welcoming “sweet” old woman. As Sandra and Kerry arrive at her house she offers them tea and puts them to work in a friendly way without ordering -

“I daresay you’d like to...”

She affectionately calls one of them, “my duck.” This is a very conventional way of showing her outside, explicit character.

Mrs Rutter has a suspiciously inquisitive nature. We can tell this because she asks both Sandra and Kerry a lot of questions about themselves, for example -

“Still at school, are you?...I expect you’ve got lots of boyfriends, though, haven’t you?”

This factor could just mean she is politely interested, but she asks too many quite personal questions and seems quite lonely. It appears she has not had children of her own here, as she strongly stereotypes both Kerry and Sandra. She sends Kerry outside to work quite early on -

“I expect you’re a nice strong boy, aren’t you?

- to enable her to chat to Sandra, who does traditionally female jobs such as cleaning and dusting. Whilst chatting to Sandra, she appears quite lonely as she asks a lot of questions and makes personal remarks.

As when describing her environment, Lively inserts one slightly disconcerting point to

Mrs Rutter’s speech and actions -

“Mind your pretty skirt, pull it up a bit, there’s only me to see if you’re showing a bit of bum.”

Although this could be a harmless comment, it is rather full on to say it to a stranger. Lively also describes Mrs Rutter’s “darting” eyes. Some of her comments embarrass or maybe worry Sandra. This is all part of the way Lively gradually reveals parts of the darker side of Mrs Rutter.

During the latter stages of the story, Lively reveals more about Mrs Rutter as she allows her to speak for herself. It should be noted that the character is more honest about herself when under pressure, as most people are. The stress of talking about her husband and reliving the trauma of the war make her less “on-guard” and more liable to say what she really thinks, without dulling it down for the sake of Sandra and Kerry. The second half of the story backs up the negative aspects found in the first half. The sinister, mean woman was there all along, one realises at the end, but this was very implicit whereas it is shown more obviously in the second half where Mrs Rutter tells her story. Lively has thought about the different mentality of the war years from when the story was written so Mrs Rutter is not entirely blamed for being bitter about the Germans during the war, yet it is realised as unacceptable to leave one to die. There is also the minor point about her husband being killed early on in the war, which would leave someone with a lot more hatred towards the country.

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Lively also writes about Mrs Rutter having a lot of old things in her house -

“The walls were cluttered with old calendars and pictures torn from magazines.”

She has shown the character doesn’t like to move on and is living in the past, which explains why she feels no remorse for what she did to the German and also why she stereotyped Kerry and Sandra.

Penelope Lively’s use of figurative language helps characterise Mrs Rutter from the moment she enters the story.

“She seemed composed of circles, a cottage loaf of a ...

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