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Old Mrs Chundle And Darkness Out There

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Old Mrs Chundle And Darkness Out There essay

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Old Mrs Chundle And Darkness Out There The two short stories “The Darkness Out There” and “Old Mrs Chundle” both deal with similar relationships, whilst at the same time having many differences. The most pronounced similarity of the two stories is that both deal with younger peoples relationships with an older person.

Another marked theme is that Hardys story concerns itself with the curates deception (unconsciously) of Mrs Chundle, while in the Lively one its the younger people who are deceived by appearances. Kerry Stevens and Sandra in “The Darkness Out There” (from Sandras point of view) have an interesting relationship, which develops throughout the story; at the beginning, Kerry is seen to be quite immature and is looked down upon by Sandra: “Kerry Stevens that none of..(Sandras) lot reckoned much on .. some people you only have to look at to know theyre not up to much.” This is quite a harsh view from Sandra, taking into consideration the fact that she doesnt really know him. Sandra believes that she is much more mature than Kerry, “she considered him, over a chasm, Mum said boys matured later, in many ways,” and this shows how ironic Penelope Lively is being concerning the relationship.

For, throughout the story, its Kerry who acts more maturely than Sandra. He offered her some chocolate when shed been yelling at him for jumping out of the bush as shes walking to Mrs Rutters, and hes the first to realise the old lady is not all she appears to be (” “I dont go much on her.” “) Sandra bases her opinions a lot on appearances, and this is why at first she sees nothing out of the ordinary with Mrs Rutter. This is also the way she is with Kerry; while all the time we are led by Sandra to believe that shes the adult one (although all the time the reader knows this isnt true) this illusion is in fact shattered at the ending, when we see Kerry (from Sandras point of view) in a different light. “Are people who help other people not always very nice looking?” This shows how shallow Sandra is, with her immature dreams and fantasies (“One day shed have a place in the country.. a little white house peeping over a hill.”) Lively, while all the time telling the reader ironically that Sandra is the more adult, nevertheless through her writing shows the reader the true scale of things (that Kerry is much more mature than Sandra all along). Lively, by reporting the way Kerry acts and speaks in the eyes of Sandra, shows how false the circumstances are regarding the youngsters relationship and the way the girl perceives it.

This is similar to in “Old Mrs Chundle,” the way relationships are sometimes misinterpreted by those involved with it. Sandra sees the relationship as her being superior to him at the start, while all along its Kerry who has the guts to face up to the stark reality of Mrs Rutters hidden past. The relationship between Mrs Chundle and the curate in Hardys story is a misunderstood and uneven one too; Mrs Chundle, after befriending the curate while he was out painting (a past-time she could never do due to her social class and financial circumstances), believes shes found a”real friend” in the younger man; whereas the curate views Mrs Chundle, rather coldly, as a charity case. For example, when the curate goes to the rector to ask about the old woman hed just received dinner from he refers to her as “a curious old soul”, which is a rather emotionally detached way of speaking about her, almost as if shes some sort of foreign being! Another point why I feel the curate to be so apathetic is the way hes so quick to judge Mrs Chundle after hearing from his rector that she told him a small lie about going to church. Only after a few seconds of conversation, the curate passes judgement when he doesnt know the full story; that she wants to save herself the embarrassment of not hearing a word at church due to her deafness.

This is an insight into how the curates mind works. We must judge the Hardy characters more by the way they act and speak rather than into any past flashbacks or mental workings revealed to the reader like in “The Darkness Out There.” This is because there are less insights into what the characters are thinking in “Old Mrs Chundle” we must rely upon Hardys descriptions and their actions to form an opinion, whereas in the Lively tale Sandra reveals her hopes and dreams and aspirations to the reader and Mrs Rutter tells intimately of her past using flashbacks in the writing. I dont think the curate knows how one-sided the relationship is himself he seems to be unaware of the chasm that separates the two. He seems so umempathetic, so totally not able to perceive what the old womans life is like, that he just plunges into the situation without fully perceiving the consequences of his actions. ” “You dont know this parish as well as I (the rector). You should have left the old woman alone.” ” This is the voice of experience it shows how the curate didnt know anything about what he was getting involved in and how the older rector wouldnt have done something as reckless.

Its not that he is consciously a bad person hes just so wrapped up in his middle-class viewpoints, that hes blinded to other peoples way of life. In this way, the curate never fully understands the relationship he has with Chundle even though hes trying to help her. In fact, Mrs Chundle seems to run in circles around him when he is offended about the lie about going to church; she knows the conversations balance with her traditionally uneducated mind while he, the middle-class scholar sent into the church, doesnt: ” “Now, I wonder what I did that for? .. Well, you could ha guessed that I didnt come to any service..

Your own commonsense ought to have told ee that t was a figure o speech.” This shows how much more astute Mrs Chundle is than the curate. This is similar to “The Darkness Out There” Sandra is also so self-involved like the curate that she doesnt see into the deeper layers of what shes gotten into. She takes things at face value, such as the way the old woman looks (“she seemed composed of circles, a cottage-loaf of a woman”), and automatically places Rutter into some kind, old dear stereotype she has built in her mind. The girl is only helping in the Good Neighbours Club because it had become “thing to do”, she isnt helping others out of kindness, shes doing it because everyone else is.

The curate, too, doesnt see Chundle for what she really is he views her as another way he can do his job, by helping her: “Her soul required a special machinery to save it.. this was decidedly a case for his ministrations.” This passage underlines the running tones of the story this is his JOB to help Chundle, he isnt doing it out of personal compassion (exactly the same as Sandra). The”friendly conversation” he engages her with when he leaves is not genuine. Yet, Kerry, the boy with the “explosion of acne on his chin” is the only genuine article in the show; he doesnt go to help Mrs Rutter because its”in” at that moment, because he isnt “in” with Sandras crowd. HE is the only one who helps out of the pure kindness of wanting to help; the two other helpers (Sandra and the curate) arent. Actually, theres a certain amount of irony to the relationship with Mrs Chundle; the curates referred to by Hardy as “the kind-hearted curate” when in fact what Ive mentioned earlier is closer to the truth.

Again, this is the same as in “The Darkness Out There”, using irony. Whats mocking about the storys relationships is the way Kerry is seen as the immature one throughout, Sandra the more adult (from the latters point of view.) These perceptions are only revealed to be false to Sandra at the end, even though we are given clues throughout the story. Also, the way Rutter has “sympathy for young people” is ironic; clearly a lie, seeing as she let a young German boy die over a period of two days in the war, an act of inhuman cruelty which contradicts what she tells the two young house helpers. Although in “The Darkness Out There,” were not given an insight into what Kerry is thinking, we can see a much more impersonal (unbiased) account of the relationship between Chundle and the curate due to the writing style; far more simple in its structure than the Lively story even though the old-fashioned dialogue isnt written in our modern train of thought, because its written pre-twentieth century. The relationships in “The Darkness Out There” are also far more complex in the way the writers portray them.

Another insight into the “Old Mrs Chundle” tale is given by the way Hardy reveals the characters to the reader using the speech patterns of his characters (for there are lots less physical descriptions here than in the other story, which is one main difference the “Darkness Out There” focuses much on imagery and not, until the end, speech, because this then sets the reader up for the climax of an ending …

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Old Mrs Chundle And Darkness Out There. (2018, Nov 28). Retrieved from https://sunnypapers.com/old-mrs-chundle-and-darkness-out-there/