The Darkness Out There - Penelope Lively

Question 1

‘She walked through flowers, the girl, ox-eye daisies.’

Answer 1

Imagery of life and flowers, linking the girl to ideas of innocence and life.

Question 2

‘Bare brown legs brushing through the grass.’

Answer 2

Plosive alliteration: emphasising ‘bare’. The character is exposed, unprotected.

Question 3

‘The dark reach of the spinney came right to the gate … Packer’s end.’

Answer 3

Long sentence followed by a short sentence - adds emphasis to Packer’s end, signalling a sort of danger, the first adding of tension/indication something is going to go wrong.

Question 4

‘Blank-eyed helmeted heads, looking at you from among the branches.’

Answer 4

H alliteration, standing out amongst the sentence. This also creates imagery and places the reader within Sandra’s thoughts.

Question 5

‘It was alright out here in the sunshine.’

Answer 5

Unwillingness to stray from what is safe, and known, a sort of innocence.

Question 6

‘It was different things then, witches and wolves and tigers.’

Answer 6

The narrator describes childhood fears of the woods, make-believe creatures, with no evidence of existing. First mention of fear/darkness being internal.

Question 7

‘After they were twelve or so the witches and wolves went away … it was the german plane.’

Answer 7

The first symbol of darkness. As the children age, their fears progress too. W alliteration.

Question 8

‘Really sweet … the old poppets.’

Answer 8

Irony - the old woman described in the story is the opposite of that.

Question 9

‘With a face below which chins collapsed one into another.’

Answer 9

Characterisation / metaphor for being ‘two-faced’.

Question 10

‘A creamy smiling pool of a face.’

Answer 10

Metaphor: what is below the surface?

Question 11

‘Her eyes investigated, quick as mice.’

Answer 11

Simile: tension, unsure, acting slightly strangely.

Question 12

‘A no-mans-land of willow’s herb.’

Answer 12

Motif of danger/war, creating tension/imagery surrounding the forest - linking to soliders.

Question 13

‘Like bees round the honeypot, they’ll be.’

Answer 13

Mrs Rutter creates tension by discussing Sandra’s future relationships, hinting to her sexuality. This creates an uncomfortable tone.

Question 14

‘She touched the soft skin of her thigh … licked the inside of her teeth.’

Answer 14

Sensory description/imagery: reader placed in Sandra’s uncomfortable shoes following the conversation, hyper-aware of everything, the awkward feeling.

Question 15

‘Mind your pretty skirt, pull it up a bit, there’s only me to see if you’re showing a bit of bum.’

Answer 15

Mrs Rutter creates tension by hinting to Sandra’s sexuality/bare body.

Question 16

‘Killed in the war … he never came back.’

Answer 16

Context to Mrs Rutter/motif of war.

Question 17

‘I’ve got a sympathy with young people.’

Answer 17

Irony: as later shown in the story, Mrs Rutter left a young German soldier to die during the war.

Question 18

‘Just the personal things to rinse through.’

Answer 18

Mrs Rutter asks Sandra to clean her underwear - creating tension, adding to a motif of sexuality/awkwardness surrounding it.

Question 19

‘You’re a lovely shape Sandra.’

Answer 19

Adding to motif of sexuality/uncomfortable feelings, as Mrs Rutter comments on Sandra’s body again.

Question 20

‘She chuckled. ‘I saw it come down alright.’’

Answer 20

Tension building, signals to the reader a sense of mystery and foreshadowing as she chuckles (verb) at a tragic event.

Question 21

‘Something about mutter, mutter… ‘

Answer 21

The trapped German soldier spends his last moments possibly thinking about his mother, a sad moment which is overlooked by Mrs Rutter as she chooses to ignore him, even after witnessing that.

Question 22

‘He’d have been twentyish, that sort of age’

Answer 22

Irony linking to previous quote where Mrs Rutter states she has a sympathy for young people (repeated phrase).

Question 23

‘The wood sat there in the afternoon sun … There were not, as the girl realised, wolves or witches or tigers.’

Answer 23

Turning point: Sandra has a moment of realisation regarding her fears.

Question 24

‘He had grown; he had got older and larger.’

Answer 24

Metaphor: mentally grown/evolved, the world around her has changed, whilst not literally, her understanding of it has.

Question 25

‘There was a darkness … you could not draw the curtains and keep it out because it was in your head, once known, in your head forever like lines from a song.’

Answer 25

Moment of realisation/growing up, simile used to compare the scale of remembrance, being unforgettable.

Question 26

‘The darkness was out there and it was a part of you and you would never be without it, ever.’

Answer 26

Fears/darkness are internal, they are not the possibilities of what you fear, what may be there, but the thought of it which is scary and inescapable.

Question 27

‘She walked with him, through a world grown unreliable.’

Answer 27

Personifies the world, changing and unknown, like a person. Moment of growing up, unknowing of the future, what is real, what is not.