‘The Black Veil’ is about a young medical practitioner who recently went into business. A woman comes to him in distress and tells the doctor about a man who is ill. She leaves him her address and leaves. In the morning he goes to the address and is told by a man that he was too early and to wait in a room. Ten minutes later he goes to see the body and he notices that the man has been murdered. He looks at the body and declares that the man had been hanged that morning. The woman agrees and tells him that he was her son.
‘The Black Veil’ was written in 1836 by Charles Dickens which was from a collection of short stories called Sketches by Boz and ‘The Darkness Out There’ was written by Penelope Lively in 1984 which was also from a collection of stories called ‘A Pack of Cards’.
I think that Penelope Lively uses more modern language than Dickens because the story was written over a century after The Black Veil. Penelope Lively concentrates more on description and dialogue. Charles Dickens offers a male perspective and concentrates on the build up of tension and atmosphere in the play.
The similarities between ‘The Darkness Out There’ and ‘The Black Veil’ are that they both start off with a nice sense of security. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ it starts with a girl walking through flowers with the sun shining in a field which sounds very relaxing. In ‘The Black Veil’ a young medical practitioner is sitting by a fire listening to the rain and wind in his dressing gown and slippers.
The difference between ‘The Darkness Out There’ and ‘The Black Veil’ are that ‘The Black Veil’ is set a long time ago while ‘The Darkness Out There’ is set in a more modern time. Also at the start ‘The Black Veil’ is set in the winter where as ‘The Darkness Out There’ is set more in the summer time.
In ‘The Darkness Out There’, Packers End is the place which is haunted. It is described as a place that children would only go in for dares. Its reputation is that of a haunted house. In ‘The Black Veil’, Walworth is a place which a ravished by poverty. Some of the people are not much to be desired either. Both of these places you would rather stay away from if given the choice.
The characters in ‘The Black Veil’ are not named but there are only a few. A medical practitioner who is only young and is on his first patient and a woman comes rushing to his house. She seems as though she doesn’t want to help the man she is asking about. The doctor gives the woman the appropriate procedures to get him through the night but she did not seem to care. Then when the doctor is at the house he announces that the man she is asking about is dead, she goes into shock.
In ‘The Darkness Out There’ the murder is that of a German pilot who crashes into Packers End but survives for a few days.
In ‘The Black Veil’ a woman’s son turns out to be hanged that same day she called the doctor.
I was shocked in the ending of ‘The Black Veil’ because I would not have expected someone to bring her son’s body back after it had just been hung. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ I would have thought that Sandra and Kerry would have understood just a little bit about what Mrs Rutter did but they didn’t and left her house. I was shocked about how their opinions changed about her.
My favourite story is ‘The Darkness Out There’ because it is longer than ‘The Black Veil’ which means that we got to learn more about the characters a bit more. I like the whole mystery about Packer’s End and how it was solved.
