The Darkness Out There deals with the reaction of two adolescents to the actions of an old woman during the 2nd World War. It sets the scene with the girl, Sandra, walking through a field on a sunny day. The field is next to a place known as Packer’s End, which is obviously known for being a ‘scary’ place. A number of events have happened there, including the crash of a German plane during the war, and thus it is marked as a haunted place. This, perhaps, is key to the rest of the story. Even in the bright sunshine, the darkness still lies there close by. By demonstrating this fact, we are clued to the main plot and theme of the story; the fact that even when something seems bright on the outside, the darkness lies on the inside.
The second main character in the story is an old lady known as Mrs. Rutter. She lives in a cottage in Packer’s End, and has done for most of her life. During the war, the German plane crashed near the cottage, and she and her sister were the first people to find the plane. While two of the crew were dead, the third was still alive, but simply trapped in the cockpit. However, rather than alerting the authorities, Mrs. Rutter and her sister left the German soldier to die. This probably reflects upon a typical WW2 attitude, but by today’s standards is probably immoral and cruel, not to mention constituting a war crime. Mrs. Rutter is a large woman, described in the text as being a woman with ‘a creamy smiling pool of a face’. This gives a picture of a very ‘soft’ type of old woman; she has cherubs and rabbits and kittens on her mantelpiece. Again, this illusion of comfort surrounding the darkness follows the trend of the story.
The main part of the story revolves around Sandra’s, and, in part, a boy called Kerry’s, reaction to the actions of Mrs. Rutter during the war. While Kerry’s reactions are of outrage, shock, and disgust, Sandra’s reaction is much more profound. It is in this reaction that the ‘darkness’ theme and element expresses itself. A lot of modern horror revolves not around ‘scariness’ but by subverting the ideas and things that are typically regarded as being unscary. This is the kind of idea shown in the Darkness Out There. By showing that the character Mrs. Rutter is certainly not how she originally appeared, the writer subverts the very ideas Sandra has about the world she lives in. In the final two paragraphs, it talks about how everything has changed, that nothing is really what it appears. ‘The darkness was out there and it was part of you and you would never be without it, ever’. It talks about how the world has turned unreliable, that no matter how something looks on the outside, there is always the darkness lurking in there somewhere.
‘The Darkness Out there’ talks at length about the ‘Darkness’, but nowhere does it explore the nature of what it is. The Red Room, however, while not directly mentioning darkness, offers much greater insight into the nature of the darkness, and what it truly is.
The Red Room is centred on a single, unnamed main character. His character, and the reasons why he comes to the house with the red room are left alone. The only insight we get into his character is that which we get through his experiences in the house, but having no one to contrast him with, this tells us little. During the first scenes of the text we see only that he appears to be a rational man; that he does not hold with such things as ghosts. As the writer sets down in the first line, ‘it will take a very tangible ghost to frighten me’. While this lack of detail decreases our possible interpretation of the character, it enhances our interpretation of the house and the red room. Were we given more insight into the character, we would have sub consciously formed associations between the character and the happenings of the text. This would, in my opinion, serve to limit the application of the theme to a specific character/ personality type. Rather, by leaving the character somewhat ambiguous, we can hope to gain the idea that the darkness inside is all pervasive, that it is in every person and type of person. This is used to a somewhat lesser extent in the Darkness Out There, where the two main characters are frequently referred to as ‘the girl’ and ‘the boy’, rather than using their real names.
The other people in the story are irrelevant to the main plot of the story and serve only to tell us the few scarce things we need to know about the main character, and to act as a conduit for the revelations at the end of the text. The original scene also serves to set tensions through the introduction of the red room; ‘A many things to see and sorrow for’, although this could easily be replaced by a number of other scenes, possibly using more imagery, which is not used greatly in the opening, but can be useful in building up dramatic tension.
In the same thread, neither do the actual goings on within the house or the room mean a great deal. They serve only to show how the main character is affected by the darkness. The actual goings on could have been changed in any number of ways and the basic plot and meaning would have stayed the same.
In line with this, the only truly profound part of the storyline is the final few paragraphs. These convey the point that the writer is trying to bring over. This is also the point where the issue of darkness is confronted in the story. While not mentioned directly, it is the driving force behind the scenes in the red room, and it is in the final paragraphs that these lead to the Red Room’s first, and only, insight into the nature of the darkness.
While attempting not to repeat the text, it basically states that the darkness is nothing more than fear. It is nothing in itself, but it lies inside us and in the way we see everything around us. The red room, and Packer’s end, are both focal points for this fear. Through the way in which fear propagates, it serves to imbed itself deeper into our subconscious. The less we know about a situation, the more fear has a hold on us. The more vague the inferences about a place, a person, the more is left to the imagination, and that is where the fear creeps in.
Both The Red Room and The Darkness Out There are based, at their root, in this fear. They deal with it in different ways, talk about it in different terms, but deep down it is still the same. It lies in every one of us, and is focussed by itself until it overwhelms us. We cannot explain it, and perhaps we never will, because once we do, we will have finally overcome it. It is by nature that which we cannot explain, what we do not know, the blind spot in our vision. It is irrational and illogical, but who knows what the world would be without it.
Nicholas Clarke
‘Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life’
Bertrand Russell
