The descriptions of ‘Mrs Rutter’ and her house evoke the senses and make us start to worry about Sandra and Kerry’s wellbeing. All this leads to the story of the plane coming down in Packers End which leaves us shocked and glad we read on and wanting to read on as we need to know what happens to Kerry and Sandra.
In ‘Frankenstein’ descriptions play a massive part in giving the story shape. Such descriptive words like “Comfortless” and “convulsive” lead us to believe that something bad may happen, and when it does eventually come it will leave you horrified yet engrossed in the story.
There are many climaxes in ‘The Darkness Out There’ whereas in the extract of ‘Frankenstein’ there is only one main climax, ‘the awakening’. The story of ‘Frankenstein’ is mostly built around this climax. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ there are many climaxes and many anti- climaxes. Such as, when Sandra is walking up to Mrs Rutters house and she is thinking of past goings on of Packers End, suddenly Kerry Stephans jumps out. We think it could be the 2 gypsy types spoke of earlier in the story, who threatened a young girl, but no its just Kerry and we are let down hence the anti- climax. The main climax in ‘The Darkness Out There’ is when Mrs Rutter comes clean about the German plane incident which shatters our stereotypical views of her.
In both stories all stereotypical views are thrown out of the window. We believe Mrs Rutter to be a kind regular “old person”. Penelope Lively describes her as “a cottage loaf of a woman” and “creamy smiling pool of a face”, but, many references are made to her eyes and the descriptions of them are of contrast, such as “her eyes snapped and darted”. Eyes are a sign of the person inside someone and the person inside Mrs Rutter isn’t a nice one, so we are deceived. Also in ‘Frankenstein’ we think the creation is evil because of the way it looks or is described, but, its actions are kind ones as in parts of the story the “monster” shows potential for good. We see this when the “monster” first tries to make contact with Frankenstein he was described to have “muttered some inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his face” and yet again we are deceived. Both stories have a main purpose to deceive. This use of characterisation gives the stories an interesting twist.
In ‘Frankenstein’ there are patterns in the language. There are many uses of the word hell in relation to the monster such as when Frankenstein describes him he describes the motions of the “monsters” joints as “something Dante could not have conceived” and he wrote about hell. In ‘Frankenstein’ there are only one or two references to the eyes whereas in ‘The Darkness Out There’ references to the eyes are often and signify bad things. The evil Mrs Rutter has her eyes described many times as bad and unsightly things such as her personality. Also in ‘The Darkness Out There’ talks of youngsters a lot and how she has a soft spot for them and later we hear of how she leaves a young German to die. There is also the fact that Mrs Rutter is very dismissive of the boy and doesn’t like boys “its different for boys, him anyway he’s not a nervy type”
Both pieces end bleakly and have negative words to end the sentence. For example in ‘The Darkness Out There’ it ends with “oh no” and in ‘Frankenstein’ “comfortless”. This is the writers way of saying that its not so simple as to shut the door on evil because evil is everywhere and not very easy to identify. Mary Shelley warns us of the danger of genetic science and how we are getting closer to creating the artificial human, this was her way of showing how wrong it could go if we did, and how this ‘thing’ would never be accepted in any society. Also both pieces warn us that evil isn’t what you think it is. Everyone has the potential to be evil and in the title ‘The Darkness Out There’ it means just that everyone has a dark side.
I feel Mary Shelly wrote this novel because she felt we needed warning of the dangers of genetic science, also both pieces express that we should trust no one and that everyone no matter how much we trust them they all have a dark side. I feel Mary Shelly achieves her goal in which she warns us but she doesn’t make the outcome look good, she tells the truth and by showing the genetic man being a social outcast we aren’t sheltered from the truth.
Both writers make good use of the readers’ emotions. This is especially seen in “ Frankenstein” as it is a first person narrative and we feel and hear the characters thoughts and feelings and this is the one main difference as in “The darkness out there” it is a third person narrative and the reader feels distanced from the characters.
I think Mary Shelly has made a great achievement in writing this book. The book is now well known and so is the writer and the message the book is trying to put across is obvious and hard hitting and makes the reader think and any book which does that in my eyes is a good one.
In many ways these pieces are similar in how they build up tension and suspense and have very little differences. Both pieces have many climaxes and anti-climaxes. Both writers set out with the intention to warn us of the dangers of miss-conceptions, as the character later to become the evil of the story “the Darkness Out There” is described as “a dear old thing”, and the so called “monster” of “Frankenstein” becomes the better person. Both pieces use similar ways to build up suspense but are not identical and are very different pieces in terms of what they are about.
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