The social background of the two characters is another clue that the story was written in the 20th century. Sandra is from a "nice" middle class family, and looks down on Kerry - she thinks he's "not up to much". She sees a class difference between them which probably does not exist, as there are no signs that her family are actually any richer than Kerry's.
Sandra's ambition is to fall in love and get a nice house in the country somewhere, and a family, whereas Kerry's is to get a job in the garage down the road. This shows the difference in the attitudes of the two characters - Kerry's is more realistic while Sandra's is quite vague.
The structures of the stories seem quite different but are in fact very similar. They both contain a "story within a story", where a character or characters are told a story by another. In The Ostler the story within a story forms the bulk of the tale, and we do not get to know the other characters, but in The Darkness Out There it does not take up very much of the whole story, and the other characters are the most important. Another difference is that the story in The Ostler is told in the third person, and the rest in the first person, but in The Darkness Out There this pattern is reversed.
There is a pattern to The Ostler, which is that Isaac's birthday is always significant. It is on his birthday that he has the dream, meets Rebecca, and is attacked by Rebecca. The landlord says that Isaac is most nervous on his birthday. The pattern is referred to in the story as "the fatal parallel". The Ostler is not a straightforward horror story by 21st century standards in that nothing very gruesome actually happens - Rebecca tries to murder Isaac, but does not succeed, either in the dream or in real life. However it does have a lot of aspects which are traditionally used in horror stories, such as the setting of the "lonely roadside inn", and the supernatural theme.
The main theme of The Darkness Out There is that people are not what they seem. All Sandra's assumptions are proved wrong. Mrs Rutter who she expects will be a "dear old thing", turns out to be utterly evil, and Kerry, who she looks down on and thinks of as childish, turns out to be the more mature and perceptive of the two. She is even wrong about Packer's End. She thinks it is a scary place, where witches, wolves or ghosts hide. By the end of the story she realises that it is just a dump, and the things that are truly scary are people's minds.
The theme even applies to the story itself. At the beginning, with the description of Packer's End, a typical horror setting, you expect this to be a typical horror story - an expectation which is not met. The Darkness Out There is not just a horror story. There are many similarities with fairy stories - the dark woods (Red Riding Hood), two children going to an old lady's cottage and the old lady putting on a nice appearance but turning out to be evil (Hansel + Gretel). But fairy stories were originally not that different from horror stories. They were horrific tales told to frighten children. In a sense, The Darkness Out There is an updated fairy tale.
The build-up of tension in The Ostler relies on the structure. When the story starts, we have not heard Isaac's story, so we see him first as an old man, in a terrible state - "withered and woebegone", which makes us wonder what happened to him. The start of the story is a point of high tension - short sentences are used, and words like "restless" and "sudden" show that the pace is very fast, and get us to read them more quickly. The narrator is "startled" and his/her "heart [is] beating fast". The pattern of bad things happening on his birthday also creates tension because you start expecting bad things to happen. The fact that Isaac is unlucky also helps, because you know it will have something to do with what happens to him. The setting of the "lonely roadside inn" on a stormy night is a traditional horror story setting, designed to make the reader feel uneasy, and to make them expect a horrific event. The description of that event, the ghostly attack, is so detailed - "light grey eyes, with a droop in the left eyelid" - that you can see it will be important later. There is a reminder of that night just before he meets Rebecca - "It was as rainy and bleak…as…when he…slept at the roadside inn", which adds to the tension and is the first clue that she is the dream woman. The weather on both of those nights, as in many horror stories, is used symbolically. It reflects the awful events that will happen or have happened and, at least on the fist occasion, the disturbed state of Isaac's mind. The next clues that Rebecca is the dream-woman are when she is described as a "beautiful" and "thoroughbred" woman, and the tension is subtly built up.
When Rebecca suggests lying to Isaac's mother about who she is, the tension is built up again as we can see she is not going to be a "good" character. When she meets Isaac's mother for the first time, their reactions to each other make it a point of high tension. Our suspicions about Rebecca are confirmed, and there is another display of her unkind nature when she angrily storms out of the house, saying that Mrs Scatchard is mad. This is the point at which she starts making Isaac's life miserable, forcing him to choose between his mother and his wife.
The way in which she is described from now on - "something [Rebecca] darkened the parlour window…a sudden chill ran through him.", "that fatal face" - helps to build up the tension as well as adding to the sense of Rebecca having supernatural powers. The gradual revealing of Rebecca's character, Isaac's mother's death and the approach of his birthday all help to build up the tension before the final attack.
In The Darkness Out There tension is built up even before the story starts by the title, which hints that the story will not be pleasant reading. Unlike The Ostler, this story starts at a point of low tension. The pace of the first few paragraphs is a lot slower, and the sentences are longer. Tension is slowly being built up in these paragraphs, by the description of Packer's End and the small, unsettling hints mentioned earlier about the field. The young girl going alone into the woods is another typical fairy story situation, and usually means she is in danger. All this makes you anticipate something scary, and this means that the line "he rose from the plough beyond the hedge" makes you jump almost as much as it does Sandra. Of course it is only Kerry - this is another case of appearances being deceptive, and Sandra being proved wrong.
The focus on Sandra's fears also helps to build up tension and adds to the creepy atmosphere. Sandra's awareness of herself makes her seem vulnerable, especially when Mrs Rutter starts to make her uneasy by saying things that are not really appropriate, such as "Pull [your skirt] up a bit, its only me to see of you're showing a bit of bum". The way the story is broken up adds to the tension. There are lots of small paragraphs, giving the story a breathless, jerky feel as it switches from one thing to another. Because they are small paragraphs, they are easier to read, and you get through them quicker than you would if they were long sections of text, which helps the story to move along quickly. When Mrs Rutter tells the story of the German airman, the story is often broken up by Mrs Rutter sipping her tea, or putting coal on the fire, even though it is a boiling hot day. Kerry also interrupts the story by dropping his spoon and pushing his chair back. This builds up the tension because we naturally want to know what happens next. Kerry's horrified reactions contrast with Mrs Rutter's calmness when telling the story.
Overall, the tension is built up by the build up of expectations of a traditional horror story and the surprise of reading about a real situation.
The important setting in The Ostler is the "lonely roadside inn". It is a classic horror story setting - it is isolated, in a pat of the country that the character knows nothing about, and the character visits it on a stormy night. The "bleak autumn wind" is described as "dreary and awful to hear", and the care with which the inn is locked up, and the detail wit which the "bolts, bars and iron-sheathed shutters" are described, suggests that there is something to be afraid of outside. This setting was used a lot in horror stories because the character is alone in an unfamiliar place, making them vulnerable.
The important settings in The Darkness Out There are the field, Packer's End, Mrs Rutter's cottage and her garden. The field is sunny and pleasant - "polleny summer grass that glinted in the sun", "the silken grass with the wind seething the corn" Packer's End is completely different. Like the inn in The Ostler, it is a classic horror story setting - "the dark reach of the spinney". It is dark and scary and it represents Sandra's changing fears as she grows up - from witches and wolves when she was little to rapists and the ghosts of German airmen in her teens.
Mrs Rutter's cottage, as I have said, is more a fairy story setting than a horror one. It is an isolated cottage - "shrugged down into the dip beyond the next hedge." with an old woman living in it, as in Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel, which is a clue that Mrs Rutter may not be just a sweet old lady. She feeds them biscuits, reflecting the witch in Hansel + Gretel, and even "cooks" them - making the room uncomfortably hot by adding coal to the fire on a sweltering summer's day. The cottage is a typical "old lady" setting at first sight - "beribboned kittens", "flowery milkmaids" but again, on closer inspection, it is "stuffy", and there is a "smell of cabbage". These hints are also subtle enough not to be noticed, and generally the cottage reinforces the stereotype.
The garden is the opposite of Sandra's unrealistic fantasy of a "place in the country". It is "bedraggled" and "matted". There are a series of metaphors to do with the war aspect of the story such as "spent vegetables" and "no-man's land".
It is possible to compare each character in The Darkness Out There.
Isaac and Sandra are both naïve "innocent virgin" figures, typical of horror stories. Isaac's lack of intelligence is emphasised and it makes him vulnerable to Rebecca, and the audience feel sorry for and sympathise with him.
Sandra, although she thinks she is mature, is not very clever either and is more vulnerable, in a way, to Mrs Rutter - Kerry realises there is something odd about her before Sandra does.
Isaac is determined, which does him no good when he is determined to marry Rebecca - "I have promised to marry, mother, and marry I must".
Sandra is unrealistic - she wants a house in the country but hates dirt - "One day she would have a place in the country, but not like this.", "She couldn't stand the feel of dirt". She thinks she's mature but in reality Kerry is much more so. By the end of the story she has changed - she is much more grown up. This is shown by her realisation about Packer's End - "There were not… wolves or witches or tigers… Nor were there prowling blokes… And there were not… ghostly voices. There were scraps of metal overlooked by people hunting for souvenirs."
Rebecca Murdoch and Mrs Rutter are the evil figures. They represent the different views of evil in the 19th and 20th centuries, but in many ways they are similar. The most obvious similarity is that they are both women, and this is very important. Because the stereotypical woman is loving and caring, the idea of an evil woman is still more scary than an evil man. Both are the exact opposites of what a wife or mother should be. Mrs Rutter does one of the most unnatural thing a mother can do, and leaves what is little more than a child to die. Rebecca Murdoch, instead of loving and supporting her husband, completely, and for no reason, destroys his life, tries to kill him and leaves him a nervous wreck. Both their names are carefully chosen - "Murdoch" sounds like "murder", which is what she tries to do to Isaac, and "Rutter" is a horrible word which sounds like "rotter" or "nutter.
Victorian men saw women as either whores or virgins, either Mary Magdalene or the Virgin Mary, and Rebecca is more at the "whore" end of the spectrum, which means Victorians would have looked down on her. The question over whether or not she has supernatural powers makes her even more frightening. She is often described in a threatening way - "Something darkened the parlour window", "That fatal face". Like Mrs Rutter, she has slight oddities about her appearance - "a droop in the left eyelid"
Mrs Rutter represents a real, as opposed to supernatural, evil. This shows the changing attitudes in the 20th century towards the supernatural - due to the advances in science we are much less likely to believe in ghosts now than 100 years ago. The description of her is important - "a creamy smiling pool of a face in which her eyes snapped and darted." It is typical of her character - it seems like a description of a nice old lady but the surprises and unsettles you. She is disturbingly invasive of Sandra's privacy - "You're a lovely shape, Sandra. You take care you stay that way." Mrs Rutter is cruel not only to the German airman, but also to Kerry and Sandra. She makes them uncomfortably hot by continually putting more coal on the fire, even though it is a burning hot day, and deliberately pausing the story at crucial points, so that the children will ask her questions, even though she knows it is an awful story and will horrify them. She repeatedly says "I've got a sympathy with young people", which is ironic when she left a 20 year old German soldier to die, and she is being so cruel to them. When she has told the story, she shows no remorse, which adds to the sense of horror. She didn’t help the soldier, she didn’t get help, and she doesn’t care. She is evil.
Mrs Scatchard and Kerry also have similarities. They are more sensible than the main characters, Isaac and Sandra. Mrs Scatchard is protective of Isaac, and sees things more clearly than him. She is superstitious, which means that the details of the dream are written down, and Rebecca is recognised.
Kerry is looked down on by Sandra but is actually more mature, realistic and perceptive. His hopes for the future are more realistic and specific than Sandra's - "They're taking me on at the garage". Like Mrs Scatchard with Rebecca, he realises that something is odd about Mrs Rutter before Sandra does - "I don’t go much on her". He is more affected by the story than Sandra is. He has grown up to think of women as caring and nurturing, and is horrified to think that a woman could treat someone like that. He reacts more obviously and exaggeratedly than Sandra does - "The boy's spoon clattered to the floor", "The boy shoved his chair back"
Sandra sees him differently at the end - from "not up to much" to "he had grown - his anger eclipsed his acne.".
I have found out that there are many differences between 19th and 20th century writing. The fact that the stories were written in different centuries affects the way the characters act and what they are scared of.
Although The Ostler seems complicated because of the typical 19th century language and structure, it is actually a more straightforward horror story because it is about fearing violence rather than people's mind's.
The stories are similar in that nothing too horrific actually happens in either of them. They are more about the character's fears. Personally, I liked The Ostler less than The Darkness Out There, as it deals with a more supernatural horror which only affects the character in the story, and so did not have such an impact on me. I liked The Darkness Out There as it makes you think, and it applies to everyone, which makes it truly chilling. At the end Sandra is changed forever. The wood is emptied of the fictional witches, wolves, tigers and prowling blokes, but this does not make her feel better. The old fears were in a way comforting - "It was cosy to think of Packer's End, where you weren't", but the new fear cannot be shut out or escaped from because it is a part of her, a part of every human that is capable of unspeakable horror.
