?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 story by projecting explicit images in to the mind to help the reader imagine

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.