?Dr. Jekyll And Mr.Hyde And The Darkenss Out There Essay, Research Paper
We
have been looking at the nineteenth century story of ?Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde?
and the post world war II text, ?The Darkness Out There.?? Both of the stories
focus on split personalities but we must compare the similarities and
differences of the stories before we judge how they relate back to the idea of
split personalities.?We should also consider the context and form
of each piece. ?The Darkness Out There,? was written by Penelope Lively and
?The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde? was written by Robert Louis Stevenson, a
popular writer with mass appeal where as Penelope Lively is a more literary
writer. In addition, ?The Darkness Out There? was written as a short story and
?Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? was written as a short novel. The stories both deal with
physical individuals, with two personalities occupying them and shifting
between the two. This happens even within one sentence in some instances. Mrs.
Rutter would go from being kind and friendly, asking Sandra to ??Put a bit of
coal on the fire,? and saying ?There?s a good boy? to Kerry, to talking about
the deaths of German war soldiers she saw dying and describing their deaths in
the encounter as ?good riddance to bad rubbish. However, the two texts both
show this shift in very different ways. They both use a variety of techniques
and both relate to different relevant aspects of the theme. Hence, we should
also consider the historical and physical as well as when the texts were
written. ?The
Darkness Out There? is set after the Second World War, in a pretty and idyllic
countryside setting. ?The strange case of Jekyll and Hyde? is in ?respectable?
Victorian London, which is none the less a dark and harsh place. Thus both of
these respectably set locations have blemishes to them. ?The Darkness Out There?
features Packers End which has many deathly feelings and darkness too it, the
three men who died horrid deaths in there, the chills which Sandra gets from
thinking about the place. When Packers End is talked about, night time is used
which is a mighty contrast to the sunny images of fields and meadows, the spilt
in the location, a split personality in the story, light and dark. ?The Strange
Case of Jekyll and Hyde has the wealth of Victorian society already supporting
it but then has the small and cramped dirtiness, the foggy evenings where a man
was once beaten. Both the stories are showing splits and this can be related to
the theme and way the story puts its self across, the split personality of the
story. A respectable front is displayed and then through this we see glimpses
of the black bad side. The stories generally have this bad side hidden but we
are still able to see. ?The Darkness Out There? focuses mainly on the summery
meadows but we then hear indirect descriptions of Packers End. This differs in
?The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as the story is based on the
respectability of Victorian London like ?The Darkness Out There? and uses Mr.
Utterson the trustworthy and conservative figure to generate a respectable
image like Mrs. Rutter is used in ?The Darkness Out There,? but we are then led
further into the story and see the blemishes in the respectability are seen
through the narrative, not experiences being recited to us as experiences of
?Packers End? are. We see for ourselves here the dirt, back streets and the
beatings unlike the other side of ?The Darkness Out There.? The setting in ?The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? is at one point mentioned as ?very
cool and a little damp, and full of premature twilight.? This is a first hand
example of the split personality coming through, the darkness showing through
too early, damp, a total opposite to the respectable setting of Victorian
London. ?The
Darkness Out There? focuses on a post world war piece and ?The Strange Case of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a pre world war piece. Penelope Lively uses World War
II in the story to show how our society has moral imperfections. We are shocked
when we are shown how Mrs. Rutter showed a murderous and evil side, which goes
against our society?s self image. This reflects the split in the personality of
the society itself with Mrs. Rutter as a representative, showing them that
parts of society have a dark and hidden side even though we tell ourselves we
are correct.?The stories here both show the theme of a
split personality with one split understated. It is almost as if the authors
are lifting up the bed slightly to show us some of the dirt that has been
brushed under there. ?The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde? does this by
relating to individual places like the street in which Dr. Jekyll?s lab is
located, the eyewitness account of Mr. Hyde beating an elderly man. Both the
authors show us the private side of people?s minds which are not usually
exposed, in ?The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? this is shows
differently as the two sides are represented as two different physical forms
unlike ?The Darkness Out There? which has Mrs. Rutter who carries both sides of
the visible personality. This can become a shock to the characters in the story
and to the reader when they discover something about that character when they
thought differently of the character, like when Sandra and Kerry in ?The
Darkness Out There? are shocked to discover another side to Mrs. Rutter. This
can be seen in the way that Kerry becomes quite aggressive in the way that he
speaks and leaves the house, Sandra becomes quiet and shows the shock that way.
The children both show a split in personality here. Peter in ?The Darkness Out
There? is busy doing jobs for Mrs. Rutter, his T-shirt is wet with sweat as he
is working so hard, he then shows the other side of his personality when he is
about to leave by disrespecting her and even goes as far to say that he never
wants ?to go near that old bitch again.? He was willing to work for her and
then badmouths her but away from her face. Sandra on the other hand simply nods
at Kerry and doesn?t say anything but she still acknowledges what he is saying.
Sandra shows a split in her personality by looking at Kerry in a different
light. She realises that you can ?get people all wrong? and she realises this
about Kerry but this also reflects what she thought of Mrs. Rutter when she
first met her and when she left the house. With Sandra being the narrator, she
shows a split in the story which we can see. A split in the personality of her
thoughts on the matters of the story, showing how she changes to see things
deeper. Instead of the tidy room to go on, she also has the dirt under the bed
to alter her opinions.In ?The Darkness Out There,? Mrs. Rutter is graphic about
the destruction in the German war plane crash, being very matter of fact and
not being moved by any of the gory details, it was ?all smashed up by the time
I saw it,? she said and ?she chuckled? when she talked about how she saw it
come down, and then goes onto saying to Sandra ?Drop more milk dear, if you
don?t mind.? From Gruesome to being respectable and polite. This is different
to ?Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? in the way that Dr. Jekyll changes physically as
well as mentally from himself into Mr. Hyde and back. In that story there are
never two personalities shown together, only one or the other at a time. The
spilt in personality of Mrs. Rutter is far subtler, she changes mentally and is
this is only noticed from listening to what she says. As a result ?The Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? is a much cruder story compared to ?The
Darkness Out There?: the horror of the story is graphic, described as it
happens. The personalities of the main characters in Jekyll and Hyde are very
apparent. ?The darkness out there? shows subtlety in the way that the horror is
used and the personalities are manipulated. Jekyll and Hyde has Hyde beating a
man in the street, you have an experience of the split personality; it is
described whereas Mrs. Rutter only gives hints through her eyes and her words.
Mrs Rutter ?glints from her chair,? and her ?eyes examine him,? when she looked
at Kerry in the story, Mrs. Rutter is gives hints of her split personality
through suggestive and opinionative actions. We don?t on the other hand get, so
much detail about the characters of Jekyll and Hyde and how we think of their
characters depends mainly on actions, we get no reports of Mr. Hyde in general
so we can make our own judgement for example, we learn from hearing of things
like the beating of a man on the street committed by Mr. Hyde.There is a fascinating amount of
imaginary connected with eyes in ?The darkness out there?. Mrs. Rutter?s eyes ?examined,? Sandra. Mrs. Rutter says to
Sandra ?only me to see a bit of bum,?
when Sandra is cleaning and mentions her ?pretty
skirt.?- she uses visuals. She talks about how Kerry puts the gel on his hair,
?sticky looking,? and says to Sandra
she hopes she keeps her shape and ?stays that way.? She chuckled as she reminisces
how she ?saw it come down all right,?
the plane, which was ?all smashed up by the time she saw it.? This is the plane that ?no one else seen it come down.? As she tells this
her ?eyes were on the girl,? and
describes how she went back for ?another look.?
?The Darkness Out There? shows the theme of a split personality with this,
relating to things like the way Mr?s Rutter?s eyes give a clue to the other
side of her personality. We know that what we see physically of Mrs. Rutter is
the opposite of her evil side and the idea of ?seeing? in the story can relate
to how her other side, opposite to her appearance, speaks out. The evil split
of her personality we get clues about through her eyes could be thought of
being just as present in the story as her physical self, her physical self
making us see the stereo type grandmother spilt, the good and obvious side of
her personality.? We must read far
deeper therefore into ?The Darkness Out There? as it is far more a story to
read over slowly than ?The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? which tells
a sto
the two sides of its split personality, the two sides of Dr. Jekyll. The different sides of the characters in the stories are
very similar. Dr. Jekyll is respectable, looks smart and is a good citizen
whereas the same man but under Mr. Hyde is corrupt and shows the reality that
Victorian London looked to be prosperous and a world leader with gracious and
good people, but under the surface hid evil while people suffered, an image
behind which this darkness was hidden. Mrs. Rutter shows the Respectability of
an older woman with kindness and warmth but then shows a corrupt side with an
inner evil. This shows a split in the personality of how the appearances of the
characters match the actions of their minds. The two sides of the personalities
are corrupt with each other and go in different directions. ?The darkness out there? is far more
compacted and information about the story is available in every paragraph.
Penelope Lively drops hints and we can see attitudes of the characters, actions
and see the plot, maybe not directly, straight away. This parallels the idea of
a split personality allowing us to pick on every little detail of Mrs. Rutter,
the split personality. We can observe things which give us clues and show us
Mrs. Rutter?s split personality in action. Jekyll and Hyde does more to set the
scene to add to the story all the way through. The scene makes the story and
creates the atmosphere. This is done to allow us to incorporate not only the
two physical forms Dr. Jekyll is able to take, his split personality, but also
we can incorporate the two sides of Victorian London, the two sides of the
industrial revolution, the prosper and the poverty, the split personality of
the age and the people there.?? This is
done in ?The darkness out there? but for totally different reasons. It works
with the atmosphere in the first part to shock in the second. Jekyll and Hyde
describes scenery, which is in the story and is important, you are entertained
with a story. ?The darkness out there? includes
irrelevant details to persuade you to think about and perceive Mrs. Rutter and
the other characters in a certain way, ?the cottage loaf of a woman,? the
pictures of ?big eyed flop-eared rabbits and beribboned kittens and flowery
milkmaids? lead us to believe she is a harmless and kind woman. Then the moral
becomes apparent, the moral is a sharp contrast to the way the story unfolds.
This reflects the way that Mrs. Rutter?s personalities have a sharp difference.
We see he physically as round and soft, she is described as a ?chintzy mass?
and she has ?folds? in her skin, this is a sharp difference in comparison to
her hidden split of her personality, harsh, evil and with no soft edges. This
compares to ?The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? as quite different.
In that story, we find out this change in personality as we read though the
story, there are no subtle hints there simply becomes the black and white story
of the split in the mental and physical state of Dr. Hyde. Both the stories
show complete opposites, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both being different physical
forms and mental states, Dr. Jekyll is respected and well known, Mr. Hyde evil
and for example violent. Mrs. Rutter similarly going form being explicitly soft
and rounded to sharp and hard. The stories both focus on detailed graphical descriptions
in the first parts. Jekyll and Hyde on London, Mr. Utterson and the whole
mystery and greyness about the whole story, the dark alleys, the back streets,
?The darkness out there? similarly on the setting and the gist of the story,
revealed to be false later on. Both showing splits in the settings of the
story. Victorian London, respectable and prosperous but we are shown dark and
dirt, the meadows around Mrs. Rutter?s house to then focus on ?Packers End?
where the truth about Mrs. Rutter?s actions and personality live, her physical
self and a split of her personality live in the middle of the meadow with the
long grasses and lady birds but her other side lives deep in ?Packers End? in
the rain and dark. The two stories use very different characters to allow us
to see into the story. ?The Darkness Out There? uses a young and innocent girl,
Sandra, happy and care free with Jekyll and Hyde using the serious aged lawyer,
Mr. Utterson. Again with Jekyll and Hyde, Mr. Utterson tells the story, he
processes events he encounters to us but with the Darkness out there, it is
quite different. There is a hidden moral. We see through Sandra?s eyes, she
represents us. She is a soft and innocent young girl. She learns two things? One that Mrs. Rutter, is old and innocent looking but when
the surface is scratched and the face beneath the make-up comes clean, we see
the other side of Mrs. Rutter?s split personality. By saying this I mean when
you investigate the controversial suggestions she makes, she begins to express
new feelings and ideas. Don?t take people at face value. Sandra uses
appearances to judge how Mrs. Rutter should be thought of, we see through
Sandra?s eyes and we are led to think the same way as her for example, with
Kerry, he is not recommended to us, Sandra notices ?his chin explosive with
acne,? for example but after her experience starts to think otherwise. This
again reflects the idea of a split personality but differently to ?The Strange
Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.? No miss interperatations are made, no lessons
to be learned. We see Dr. Jekyll for who he is and he stays that same person, Mr.
Hyde is shown in his true colours all the way through. We have different
sympathies for them but we indeed know the general personalities of the split
men, we learn that Kerry, not presenting such a respectful appearance, is under
his surface good, unlike the personality change in comparison to Mrs. Rutter?s
appearance and general actions. Penelope Lively uses the basis of the 2nd world
war to give the message that all human nature has a dark side. She shows that
there is darkness out there and often harmless looking light, i.e. Mrs.
Rutter?s appearance is that of a masking light. The war is used to here to give
an example. In the war, Britain, to the British was all well and good, but the
truth of the matter was they were just as bad as the Germans. Mrs. Rutter is an
example. She shows us how younger generations cannot always trust the all
knowing and advising morals of the elder generations, the good taught to
children of how we acted in the war is a mass split in our personalities and an
over-looking the other half of our own personality. ?The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? uses the industrial revolution to illustrate the same
thing. A strong and new advance in our society, prestigious and respectable but
in the back streets of these developed areas are the black bits, the split
personality of a mass of people?s triumph, but unlike ?The Darkness Out There,?
?The strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde uses different people but from the
same original source to give split personalities rather than a variance in one
entity. When Sandra ?touched, secretly, the soft skin of her
thigh.? She feels herself to be young and near perfect, maybe she is trying to
see if she is experiencing this awakening, to the darker side of life, whilst,
still in contact with the soft, neat youth of innocence which she believed to
be true. Sandra here is realising the split personality of life, life has its
other ideas which she is getting tastes of now. ?She poked in a crack at a
clump of fluff,? means to me that once looking in the hidden cracks, you find
the dirty fluffy other split of the reality in life. ?The Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? entertains us instead of educating us with plain facts of
the spilt personality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The language of Jekyll and Hyde is far more old fashioned
and factual. Again it seems to tell a story to entertain. It could be described
as something for the reader to gain instant entertainment from. The Darkness
out there requires you to read between the lines or you will not fully benefit.
You partly tell yourself the story and make your own mind up. For example, the
?yellowing newspapers? and ?smell of mouse.? These can be visualised and
interpreted, even included into the story as much as desired. This relates to
the idea of a split personality, you can see between what the author has
written and you notice the splits in the story. Both evil characters show themselves enough for the others
to notice them but hide away enough so that it is only suspicion until they are
finally revealed. We see glimpses of each. The darkness out there has Mrs.
Rutter expressing her evil side quickly in sentences and through her eyes
quickly. Jekyll and Hyde has Mr. Hyde appearing at night and only being seen
briefly. They are there but haven?t been seen to their full extent. One hidden
physically, Jekyll and Hyde and the other mentally, The darkness out there.
This relates to the fact that we never see the full personalities in these two
texts together. They are split and we can only guess the full personality from
the parts of the two sides we see. Overall, Jekyll and Hyde is a story and the Darkness out
there is reality, it is an informative example of a moral. This is designed
very well to awaken you and at the same time make you remember. Even subtleties
like using the word ?bitch? to describe an old woman work very well in doing
this. Hearing an old woman calling a German soldier she is allowing to die
slowly and painfully a ?tough bastard? whilst dabbing her mouth with the utmost
etiquette, shocks! But maybe we can now link the two together. The dabbing of
her mouth is very smart and respectable, but can it be shown to symbolise her
thirst for evil and maybe she could even said to be drooling over the thought
as someone who laughs at death in such a way would be capable of that, the good
side of her is mopping up the bad side?s effect. The delicateness of her
actions could compensate for the bluntness of her evil actions. The two sides
of the personality balancing each other out.