Then he heard his aunt shouting for him, while she was searching for him, he had tidied up and then went to see what she wanted, she told him she had fallen in to the rainwater tank and told him he had to go and get a ladder, so she could get out. He knew it was his aunt, but this was his chance to get revenge for the lies she told earlier. He said that he did not believe she was his aunt, and that she was the evil one sent to tempt him in to the gooseberry garden, where he was not allowed, he knew not to push it to far and walked away so as not to get his aunt to annoyed so she wouldn’t punish him further. He also showed her he is not as stupid as he may seem by telling her about the strawberry jam, but his aunt didn’t know it was there.
In short, this story is about a young boy who’s trying to prove he’s not too easily frightened he’s imaginative and realises that adult’s are not with out there own faults, no ones perfect and it’s not only children who get mixed up.
The darkness out there is a turning point story. In this story, there is a young girl about 13 – 15 years old. She starts of in the story looking at the world in a nice light and talking about fantasy creatures, also how nice her life will be when she grows up, gets a job has kids and a beautiful loving husband the usual 13 – 15 year old female dream.
Then she meets Kerry Stevenson and decides from things other people have said that he is not a very nice person. Then she meets Mrs Rutter and decides she is a innocent sweet old lady, she is in fact not very nice and leaves a German pilot in the woods for two days to die a slow pain full death. The story follows a stereotypical approach to looking at old and young people, these stereotypes soon change as you find more about the characters, as the story goes on Mrs Rutter describes how she left a pilot to die as an act of revenge and Kerry turns out to be quite humane and kind lad.
At the end of this story, she is walking home and decides that everything is not as it seems and that not every one is stereotypical.
I prefer the lumber-room because of its happier out look on life a carefree childish approach to life, also the way Nicolas out smarts his aunt is amusing and made me laugh. The book formed strong pictures in my mind and was enjoyable and easy to read
I believe that the darkness out there uses to much symbolism to convey its point, also the lumber-room is much easier to read less description, more action and lets get down to the facts.
In the lumber room the only really long descriptive part, is the part where the hunts’ man is hunting the stag and is himself being followed by some wolves he doesn’t take this at face value and makes the story behind the tapestry much more complex than it actually is. I feel he can identify with the hunts man, as he has also hunted his aunty in his own childish way.
I think this is an excellent piece of descriptive writing and describes a young Childs imagination very well, he looks at the tapestry and sees past the plane facts and even comes back to comment on it later saying that he thinks the wolves will eat the stag while the hunts man runs from the wolves. In addition the plot is nowhere as near sinister or riveting, as the darkness out there. This story uses lots of light, dark contrasts to show that things are either a bad or good memories, when she walks down by packer’s end there’s a shadow that falls on her and it gets colder, using metaphors to describe her feelings as a physical feeling rather than a emotional one.
The darkness and light story left me feeling sad miserable proving grown ups to be fallible and weak, where as the lumbar room story made me feel alive, excited and amused wanting to read more of his antics.