When Kerry and Sandra go to the house, they expect to meet a simple yet stereotypical old lady who needs some help around the house. However, the person they come to meet may seem this way but shows a different side to her they did not expect. Nearer the end of the story, Mrs. Rutter begins to tell them her story during the war, she spoke of the enemy (Germans) as 'Bang goes some more of the bastards' and Kerry and Sandra thought of her as she was evil, mean and cruel. While Pip is in the manor house he begins to think that Mrs. Havisham is not what she seems, she looks as though she is hooked on the past and cannot let go of what she thinks is her course in life. When she said this 'Look at me! You are not afraid of a woman who has not seen daylight from before you were born' Pip starts to think that something is wrong, Mrs. Havisham is still attached to her wedding were her husband left her on the altar.
In 'The Darkness Out There' the two children - Kerry and Sandra both come from different backgrounds, Sandra however comes from a slightly better family. Due to this fact, Sandra seems to act a bit more snobbish towards Kerry even though this is not his fault she thinks this as she saw him 'Kerry Stevens from Richmond Way'. In 'Great Expectations' Estella lives with Mrs. Havisham as her child to bring up, this makes her act like Pip is common muck and is not worthy to be In her company. Estella demoralizes him as she says 'Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in.' and then scornfully walked away.
In both of the texts the male visitors are not exactly favored, Kerry in 'The Darkness Out There' was not liked by Sandra or Mrs. Rutter. Sandra said to him 'I didn't know you where in the good neighbors!', this insults him as it perceives him to be a worse character than he is. Nevertheless Sandra shows a dislike to him, nevertheless he still wishes to gain her affections.
Mrs. Rutter doesn't rate Kerry as a person, she shows this by saying 'It's a shame they put that stuff on their hair', she also acts ignorant to him when she offers the biscuits 'Take them out and see if what's-s'name would like one?'. info
In 'Great Expectations' Pip goes to the Manor, he like Kerry to Sandra is not favored in Estella's eyes. She spoke of him as 'boy' in the text - 'Though she called me boy so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was about my own age'.
In both of the texts the characters learn facts which to them now are life changing, these facts will change the way they feel about the other characters or more about themselves. In 'The Darkness Out There' Kerry and Sandra find out a hidden story lingering in Mrs. Rutter's past, during the war a German plane had crash-landed in a close-by field. Mrs. Rutter then with her sister inspected the site and noticed one of the men still alive, however this fact held no guilt against her and she left him there to die. She told the children ' tit for tat' and 'he must have been a tough bastard' this shows that she is vengeful and even though she left that man to die she held some respect for him. This to the children and the way Kerry reacts to the story shows Sandra how ignorant she has been, it described as a new person 'She walked behind him, through a world grown unreliable, in which flowers sparkle and birds sing but everything is not as it appears, oh no.' In 'Great Expectations' Pip while in the room with Estella playing cards begins to notice how different he is towards her and how her looks in her eyes, she talked of him as 'He calls the knaves Jacks , this boy. And what coarse hands he has! And what thick boots!', Pip realizes that he is just a common laboring-boy and generally that he was in a low-lived bad way.
Pip and Kerry are just normal hard-working young adults, they are the targets of Sandra and Estella who they whatsoever like to a certain extent. This however is the opposite effect they wish to receive from Sandra and Estella, they cover their feelings to remain as normal as possible in the girl's eyes - 'I did a job on your dad's car last week, that blue escorts his isn't it?'. They continue to sound and feel alike yet defiantly have differences, Pip works for his Aunt's husband at his Blacksmith's workshop. Kerry has the goal in life to succeed in mechanics working in the Blue Star Garage.
Estella and Sandra are just two ordinary girls who either live with or help old ladies, the girls do not like Pip and Kerry and tend to use worse methods than greetings towards them - 'Didn't know you where in the good neighbors!'. The two girls both have a snobbish outlook towards in their mind lesser people. Even though the two girls may be similar some differences separate them, Sandra mostly listens to her mother's point of view and that opinion hardly ever changes. Also she loves to hear praise or flattery about herself, this confirms to me that she is quite vain 'she looked at her own neat feet'. Estella is like Mrs. Havisham's servant girl, she lives a rich life with the affluent old lady of the house.
The setting in both texts close to the beginning remains diverse from each other, in 'Great Expectations' the setting is cold and dark within the grounds of the manor. However, in 'The Darkness Out There' much of the setting is described as human squalor or dilapidated bits of rubbish spread across the open fields. It also talks of how quiet both of the scenes are near the start and end of each text.
The setting of 'Great Expectations' is forbidding and depressing to see as if you are not welcome it says 'of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it' and as well as this the house has clearly been neglected 'some of the windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were rustily barred', also the setting seemed to have an unnatural ambiance - 'a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea.
The setting of 'The Darkness Out There' does not contain the darkness of 'Great Expectations' but includes some examples of human immorality like it.
Some of the natural images that inhabit the story are of 'cindery paths down the garden' and Sandra playing with a blue flower 'she would pick up a blue flower and examine it's complexity of colour'. The other descriptions of settings that the text contains includes the rubbish of others dumped 'a dumped mattress and a bedstead', as well as this the house was thought of as 'the clotted shifting depths of the place' and 'the cupboard, stacked with yellowish newspapers, smelt of damp and mouse'.
In the separate texts themes control the manner of which the characters seem to act and learn from their experiences, they show how stories and learning can be linked to bring together a strange plot.
In both extracts the characters go on journeys of self-discovery finding out the true feelings and emotions behind the other people, Sandra's eyes are opened to the real Kerry - 'You could get people all wrong, she realized with an alarm'. She also now sees Mrs. Rutter now for who she really is - an evil, old woman.
Another way the stories inter-twine with the themes is the matter of judging on appearances and not treating people equally, Estella shows this side of her to Pip as she says 'why, he is a common laboring boy!'. Sandra also shows this when she thought to herself 'Kerry Stevens from Richmond Way'.
A further theme which the stories share is the fact that people can be dangerous and cruel. Mrs. Rutter shows this as she said 'Tit for tat' about the dying soldier. Estella shows this side of her when Pip thinks of himself differently 'I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began to consider them an indifferent pair'.
The structure and language of the texts are set in different eras.
'Great Expectations' is set in the pre-20th century, the language it uses is very different to how we would use it today. Nowadays we tend to use shorter more efficient sentences to improve their effect when reading out loud, however this text uses longer sentences yet still provides the same type of structure a newer story would. The structure of this text is set with a guideline, it has an opening which takes Pip to his interview, a middle where Pip is talking to Mrs. Havisham and an end where he leaves the manor to go to his Aunt's home.
'The Darkness Out There' is set after the Second World War. It was written during the 1970's. The language it uses is based around the writers today and their styles of short snappy sentences, it uses these to keep the reader reading and not to persist for too long. The structure of the story is like 'Great Expectations' but has two differences, instead of a middle it has the visit itself and instead of an end it has a part where the two children have learnt some new interesting yet disturbing facts.
To conclude even though the stories are different and are set in separate eras the story's themes show that they are linked with similar types of messages and structural similarities. The characters are connected with the way they treat each other and go about their tasks, also the language links together by the way the stories are written and how the writers talk about the character's journey. sayhat whilst this represents a progression, in the end we have come no closer to any "real" knowledge.
