At the beginning we are able to piece together certain aspects connected to the nature of the fear in each story. In ‘The Red Room’ we find out that the Duke, who lived there a long time ago, fell down the stairs in mysterious circumstances and the Duchess was scared to death. Later however, the 28-year-old man discovers that the truth is that there is no ghost that the only thing in that room is your own psychological fear. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ we know that in World War II, a German aircraft crashed down in Packers End and there are reports that people can still hear the murmuring of the German airmen occurring their. But we find out that the true evil is not the German airmen, but Mrs. Rutter reveals her story to Sandra and Kerry that she saw the craft crash land and allowed the one German survivor to suffer in pain for two cold and rainy nights before his demise.
The other characters in the story are the three old people from ‘The Red Room’ and the youthful Kerry Stevens. I believe that they are present to help create a better atmosphere in each of the stories. All of the characters have a personality change when they discover the truth of the ghost/fear in the stories.
At the beginning of the story, the three old people are sinister and decaying with the way that they try to enhance the fear of the 28-year-old man by making the red room seem so frightening. But when the 28-year-old man recovers from knocking himself out, they become friendlier and they praise the man for surviving the night and respect him for his discovery.
When we first come across Kerry, he appears to be your average, carefree, teenager. Upon the discovery of how Mrs Rutter left the German airmen to perish in the cold and wet, trapped like a prisoner in Alcatraz, Kerry becomes disgusted and hateful, of the evil, which Mrs Rutter has caused.
The main themes of the story are ‘isolation’ and ‘age’. The old people in ‘The Red Room’ are isolated because they live in a castle and do not get many visitors and they are disabled so they cannot leave the castle. We know they are disabled by the way that the 28-year-old man describes them. He talks about ‘the man with the withered arm’ and he says ‘I heard the sound of a stick…as a second man entered more bent, more wrinkled, more aged’ which shows that they are old, has a hunched back and can’t walk properly. The elderly Mrs Rutter in ‘The Darkness Out There’ is isolated in her house by Packers End as it is cut off from most of society.
In ‘The Darkness Out There’ age was represented on a poster for the good neighbours club as ‘a jokey cartoon’ with some small old people with spectacles which is a stereotype.
The settings are similar, as they are both set in isolated areas that are associated with strange goings on, such as ghosts. Having them in isolated areas creates a tense atmosphere, as you are unable to obtain any kind of help as you are separated from the rest of the world. On the other hand the stories vary due to the castle/mansion in ‘The Red Room’ being dark and mysterious but Mrs Rutter’s cottage is just an average cottage.
On the subject of language, due to the large time difference and the author’s different styles of writing, the two stories are written in completely separate ways. ‘The Red Room’ is written in an old fashioned, archaic language and in traditional 1st person narrative. It uses vivid description to create fear by allowing you to ‘see’ what he sees and to feel his feelings so when the candles going out in quick succession scare him, you can understand what is going on in his imagination. However, ‘The Darkness Out There’ is more modern, using colloquial language, feeling poetic in style and is in 3rd person narrative. Also there are many contrasts between happy feelings and bad feelings, showing that no matter what is happening things are able to change more quickly. For example Sandra is talking about how she enjoys all summer and pretty things and then starts talking about rape, murder and pillaging.
Both the stories contain high components of fear. Both of the stories are set in inaccessible, isolated areas which create fear due to, what I call, the ‘Home Alone’ factor where you have no one to call for help, help is unobtainable. In ‘The Red Room’ they refer to the ‘other world’ full of ghosts and other spiritual terrors. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ they use death with all the stories of people being murdered and young girls being raped and they use mythical creatures and their stereotypes such as evil howling wolves and witches to create fear. But the main fears are different. In ‘The Red Room’ there is a strong psychological aspect, with the man realising that all the fear being in his imagination. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ we find out that despite stereotypes, people such as the supposedly harmless Mrs Rutter are capable of evil actions. I don’t think that the stories the stories are typical of the horror genre. They are more psychological stories, using people’s minds to create a reaction.
Around the era in which ‘The Red Room’ is set, is in a low-tech age. In the castle there isn’t electricity so the 28-year-old man has to walk down the dark, eerie passageway leading to that master bedroom, the red room. Also when he is in the red room, he gathers all 17 candles from outside of the red room to provide light for him to study in. In this period of time, they speak differently to our modern way of speaking such as saying ‘eight and twenty years’ whereas we would say twenty-eight years.
During the period of ‘The Darkness Out There’, it is more modern. They speak in informal language saying ‘she has got a wonky leg after her op,’ instead of more formal language. They have people helping the elderly with jobs that they are finding difficulty with, such as cleaning and mowing the lawn.
In the story there are some rather striking similarities. These include that the old people in ‘The Red Room’ and Kerry Stevens are both changed by the end of the story – The old people change from sinister and decaying, to nice, with respect for the 28-year-old man and Kerry changes from your average, care free Joe Bloggs to a bitter hate filled Joe Bloggs hating what Mrs Rutter did. They both comprise of darkness. In ‘The Red Room’ the darkness is literal, as the 28-year-old man is unable to see due to his fear. In ‘The Darkness Out There’ the darkness is metaphorical as Mrs Rutter can’t see what she has done wrong by abandoning the German airmen. Both of the areas featured in the stories are isolated, fear is greater as there is low chance of it as the areas are almost inaccessible. Another striking similarity is how the truth is revealed during the daytime in the stories - in ‘The Red Room’ when he recovers from knocking himself out, in ‘The Darkness Out There’ when they are just sitting around in Mrs Rutter’s cottage. The other difference that I am able to see is that both the areas in the stories have stories about people dying their.
Like similarities, there are many striking differences as well. ‘The Red Room’ is set entirely during day time whilst ‘The Darkness Out There is set during night time – he only recovers in daytime where the story ends soon after. There is almost a century time difference between the two as ‘The Red Room’ is set around the 1890s and ‘The Darkness Out There’ is set in the 1980s
