Compare and contrast The Darkness Out There by Penelope Lively and The Red Room by H G Wells Essay Example For Students

Compare and contrast The Darkness Out There by Penelope Lively and The Red Room by H G Wells Essay Story 1 Story 1 is about teenagers in a club who go around helping old people. The club is called the Good Neighbours Club. There is a girl called Sandra. Pat asked her to go to Mrs. Rutters house to help out. Mrs. Rutter lived in Packers End. Packers End is a place where you should not go alone. People say that once a German plane crashed there in the war and the aircrew all died. People imagined wolves, scattered bones, witches and tigers lived in Packers End but when Sandra walked down she saw neat grass and heard robins singing. Sandra finally made it through Packers End and when she got there the person she was to work with scared her. His name was Kerry Stevens. They got to Mrs. Rutters house and they saw sweet old women with a wonky leg. Once they got in, they started doing the work. Mrs. Rutter kept complimenting Sandra and she hardly said anything to Kerry. Then Sandra and Mrs. Rutter started talking about Mrs. Rutters husband. He died in the war, right at the start of it. Then they started talking about the German plane that crashed in Packers End in the war. Mrs. Rutter said that she saw it come down. She said that the plane was all smashed up before she got to see the whole of the plane. Sandra was astonished she said ooh I wouldnt have gone close to It. Said Sandra. She said that she heard the engine and knew it was going to come down. Mrs. Rutter said that they had no telephones so no one could call the police. Then Mrs. Rutter started explaining how her and her sister Dot went to go and look at the plane that crashed. We got our wellies on, and dot had a lantern. And we went off. It was not very . we cheered I can tell you. Dot said goes some more of the bastards. They were just going to go back home when heard a sort of moaning noise. They went back to see what it was but all they saw was two dead people in front of them. Then Mrs. Rutter started to explain that 1 of the two people she thought was dead was not dead but hurt pretty bad. Mrs. Rutter said that she knew that he was not going to last long so her and her sister went back to the cottage leaving him to die. There was silence in the room. Then after the silence she continued the story. She went back the next day to where the plane was, to see if the man was dead or not. But when she got there she saw that he was still alive. I never imagined he would last the night. Said Mrs. Rutter. She said that she could see him better now it was light. First she thought it was an old bloke but it was not he was in his twenties. She said that he had seen her but he was in too much pain to look at her. Then she said to the pilot you had this coming to you mate, theres a war on. She said to Sandra and Kerry that why should I do anything for him I mean nobody done anything for my Bill. Bill was Mrs. Rutters husband. Kerry got so angry and said he was leaving. Then Sandra said that she would go with him. Mrs. Rutter was surprised that they were leaving. Kerry said that he would never go to Mrs. Rutters house again. He found out that Mrs. Rutter could have helped the man instead of leaving him to die a slow and painful death. He found out by that story that the two people were not men they were Mrs. Rutter and her sister Dot and no girl got raped but someone got murdered. Story 2 Story two is about three old people who live in a castle. They think it is haunted but it is not. The three people who live there are the man with the withered arm, the old women and the man with the shade. A man comes to the house and he wants to stay in the house. All of the old people think that the house is haunted but the young man does not believe them. The man said to the old people if I saw this haunted room I will be more comfortable with myself. The old women said tonight out all nights you go to the Red Room alone. The man said fine I will go by myself which way is it. The man with the withered arm gave him directions. He looked at the table as he left the room, to see what the old people are doing after he left. He left the room, lit the candle and walked down a chilly passage. He said to himself that three old pensioners in one big old-fashioned house with old furniture scared him a bit. He thinks that the old people belong to another age, an age of old witches and omens. He went off down the chilly passage where the echoes rang up and down the staircase. He was getting a little scared now because he was all alone in a dark chilly passage. He told himself to get all the scary ideas out of his own head. He was talking to himself. He finally got to the Red Room. He found a person dead there. It was a person who wanted to go to the Red Room as well but did not make it. Ode on Melancholy and ode to autumn EssayHe knows the way to the room quite well. The only thing that the man with the withered arm kept saying was it is of your own choosing. The man with the shade in Story 2 is known as the second old man. He was more bent and wrinkly than the man with the withered arm. The man with the shade supported himself by a single crutch, his eyes were covered by a shade, and his lower lip, half averted, hung pale and pink from his decaying yellow teeth. He sat on the opposite table to everyone else and when he sat down he started to cough. The man with the shade did not realize that the young man was in the room. He is quite a slow man. In Story 1 Mrs. Rutters cottage is placed in Packers End. There were a lot of bad stories that went around Packers End. When all the children were young and they heard about what went on down Packers End they were scared and now they are all grown up they dont believe any of the stories. Mrs. Rutter lived in a small cottage. The house was a bit old because Mrs. Rutter said to Sandra and Kerry just give it a push. It sticks see. That means that the house is so old that the doors have begun to stick. In Story 2 the Red Room is set in a haunted castle. Everyone that lives in the haunted house thinks it is haunted. The only story that is true about this room is that the duke died in the room after falling down the stairs that lead up to the Red Room. People think it was a ghost who pushed him but no body really knows what happened. Some of the language used in Story 1 is modern colloquial language. Like the word chocky the author use these words to give atmosphere to the old women. Story 1 opens with a description of the outside. The author has written in non Standard English. The language used in Story 2 is very descriptive. It gives you large detail of each character. The language used in this story is archaic language. It is written in pre 20th century language. Story 2 opens with a conversation. It immediately gets to the point. Using archaic language in the story the author I think has made it sound interesting and using the language it does. In Story 2 when someone asks a question the reply is always short. In the whole of Story 2 the author has not used modern English in it once. During the middle of the story the language is slowed down to make it sound more dramatic. Story 1 and Story 2 are both different from each other. Story 1 is about, an old woman called Mrs. Rutter who once saw a German plane crash down in Packers End. She could have helped one of the German aircrew survive but did not. She left him there to die because her husband got killed in the war and no body helped him survive so she didnt help the man. Story 2 is about a man who wants to go up to a room that is called Red Room but no one in the house which the Red Room is situated in wants to go up there with him because they think it is haunted. They tell him the way and he goes up there by himself. When he is in front of the Red Room he gets a bit scared because of what the old people said and at the end he does not get to the Red Room in the end because he bangs his head trying to get out of the room. He wakes up in the morning in the living room with three old people looking at him. He tells all of them that it is true that the room is haunted but they tell him that the room is not haunted but it was all in the mind. The two stories are a little bit similar because in both stories darkness is mentioned and people are scared of it. The darkness in Story 1 is Packers End. Everybody is scared to go down it at night because of all the stories they heard about it and the darkness in Story 2 is the Red Room. People think it is haunted and start to imagine that ghosts exist and all sorts of things are happening but really it is happening in the mind. The fear of darkness will never go away as long as people still keep the fear in their hearts. When it is in the heart at night it automatically goes into your mind and you start to get scared of nothing really. The story I enjoyed most was Story 2 because it was more realistic than Story 1 because Story 2 kept you in more suspicion than Story 1. It gave you more description of the characters and I understood it more. When I read Story 1 I did not realize that Mrs. Rutter left the German man to die. When I read Story 2 once I understood it straight away that people are only scared about things they hear about because darkness is involved and that there were no ghosts really it was in the head and that it was a not a ghost who was blowing the candles out, it was the cold breeze coming from the door. Story 1 is a good Story 2 but I think that Story 2 is better.