Comparison Of Thomas Hardy

’s “Old Mrs Chundle” And Penelope Lively’s “The Darkness Out There” Essay, Research Paper

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 people.s relationships with an older person. Another marked theme is that Hardy.s story concerns itself with the curate.s deception (unconsciously) of Mrs Chundle, while in the Lively one it.s the younger people who are deceived by appearances.

Kerry Stevens and Sandra in .The Darkness Out There. (from Sandra.s 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.(Sandra.s) lot reckoned much on . some people you only have to look at to know they.re not up to much.. This is quite a harsh view from Sandra, taking into consideration the fact that she doesn.t 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, it.s Kerry who acts more maturely than Sandra. He offered her some chocolate when she.d been yelling at him for jumping out of the bush as she.s walking to Mrs Rutter.s, and he.s the first to realise the old lady is not all she appears to be (. .I don.t 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 she.s the adult one (although all the time the reader knows this isn.t true) this illusion is in fact shattered at the ending, when we see Kerry (from Sandra.s 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 she.d 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 youngster.s 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 it.s Kerry who has the guts to face up to the stark reality of Mrs Rutter.s hidden past. The relationship between Mrs Chundle and the curate in Hardy.s 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 she.s 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 he.d 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 she.s some sort of foreign being! Another point why I feel the curate to be so apathetic is the way he.s 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 doesn.t 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 curate.s 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 Hardy.s 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 don.t 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 woman.s life is like, that he just plunges into the situation without fully perceiving the consequences of his actions.

. .You don.t 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 didn.t know anything about what he was getting involved in and how the older rector wouldn.t have done something as reckless.

It.s not that he is consciously a bad person . he.s just so wrapped up in his middle-class viewpoints, that he.s blinded to other people.s way of life. In this way, the curate never fully understands the relationship he has with Chundle even thou