'The Darkness out there'.

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English assignment

Wider reading

by Julhaz Miah

Penelope Lively is a well known author who has written many books for both adults and children. She was born in 1933 Cairo but moved to england when she was twelve. She still lives in England and has two grown up children. Penelope's books are short deceptively simple and often end unexpectedly.

This story 'the Darkness out there' was published in 1984. it is about two young people who go to help an old lady but leave shocked after several chilling revelations.

The children are members of a neighbourhood help club that around the neighbourhood doing menial jobs for old people. The significance of the title and the ambiguity of the title is that literally ''the darkness'' can mean the darkness of Packers End but metaphorically it could refer to evil of Mrs. Rutter. To aid this theme of ambiguity ''out there'' is used as it is unspecified and could literally mean out there in the world or metaphorically inside everyone's mind.

The story begins with Sandra on her way to Mrs. Rutter's cottage. She walks through lovely beautiful meadows, everything is lush and glorious until Sandra approaches Packers End now suddenly the mood changes. The atmosphere becomes spooky and eerie. As she begins to describe Packers end with elements of the supernatural e.g. ''You can still hear voices'' and the word ''darkness'' is used to add a streak of evil.

Lively also uses language to make Packers End seem bedraggled, filthy, overgrown and unpleasant by using words to depict a squalid image e.g. ''Nasty, dark, crumbling, rusty, scraps and creepy.'' Lively also uses short sentences on purpose e.g. ''Then it was the German plane. And other things too.'' this is used to add dramatic tension, which is useful for creating an impact on the audience. Myths and rumours also add to the spooky atmosphere e.g. "Then it was the German plane." And "Girl Attacked on lonely road."

This description of Packers End is in sharp contrast with the description of Sandra walking through the plush and beautiful meadows. Day dreaming in the sunshine. Penelope Lively uses this on purpose to add dramatic tension to the story. Thus making the reader want to read on. She further adds tension by using long descriptive sentences e.g. "Crumbling, rusty scraps of metal and cloth and…bones ?" This is used By Penelope Lively to further prolong the audiences anxiety.

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This constant building of tension of Sandra's fears, the rumours and myths all build up and come to a climax as Kerry jumps out and frightens Sandra. e.g. "He rose from behind the hedge" and "she screamed" is a sign of how the reader feels how Sandra feels. The extract "he rose" is used by Penelope Lively to immediately, automatically and subconsciously make the reader think of the two rapist Gypsies. This petryfyingly terrorises her e.g. "you gave me the fright of my life" this is cleverly used by Lively to show how naïve, nervous, but most importantly, how ...

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The title of this essay and of the story under review are the same, and there is little guidance concerning the aims of the essay in the introduction, so we are lacking criteria to judge the writer's achievement. However, character analysis and the language techniques of the author are conducted perceptively. The conclusion is short and does not fully summarise the findings of the essay. Paragraphs are mostly logically constructed, with the exception of the mid-paragraph carriage returns that occur frequently. Sentence construction is often flawed, with errors of grammar and punctuation. 3 stars.