The thing in the forest: A analysis by Arthur Farias de Alcântara

    The short story "The Thing in the Forest" written by A. S. Byatt, depicts a traumatic event experienced by two young girls, Penny and Primrose, and the consequences generated by this event in their adult lives. The story begins with a rather peculiar phrase, "THERE WERE ONCE," using an analogy to fairy tales that begin using "Once upon a time," some lyricists argue that this is a modern approach to the fairy tale. This is all well used by the author, because with this she manages to pass to the reader the idea of something supernatural or surreal, a characteristic present in fairy tales. Thus, we can introduce the idea that fairy tales are stories used with the purpose of teaching life experiences to children and this will be a concept constantly addressed throughout the story.

    With this introduction, the reader may end up being subjected to the suspension of disbelief, which will be responsible for making us think a little bit about whether the event that happened to the girls was real or not. Was it all a figment of the children's imagination or was it something that really happened? It is these small details that make the work have a good pace and that ends up sticking in the reader's mind.

    The story, properly speaking, begins with the evacuation of the children from the city of London to the countryside, due to the chance of the city being bombed. It is implied that the narrative takes place during the Second World War and the narrator is shown to know all the events that the children are not informed about or do not understand. It can be seen that, it is necessary to have some prior knowledge about the historical events, fairy tales and some of the author's biography. A good example is by studying a little about the author, who when she was a child, was evacuated from the town where she lived because of bombings. London plays a very important role, it will come into contrast with the countryside in which the girls will go. The city is seen as a no longer safe place for the children, a place that in its beginning was warm and welcoming, a place where their families are. The countryside is now the place in which the girls are sheltered and are considered "safe", however it is not safe for them as there is a lack of supervision from those in charge. Essentially, we also have to highlight the contrast that the two characters end up forming. Penny and Primrose are a gimmick used by the writer to highlight their personalities, the events and details of the story. Penny, meaning penny in English, is shown as a person connected to facts, science, and the material world in a proper way. Primrose, on the other hand, which is a name given to a typical flower from England, is a girl more connected to the magical side of things, a girl who believes in unicorns and fantasies, for example. And these aspects will be carried with the characters into their adult lives. The first paragraphs manage to portray with splendor the mental functioning of the characters, because each one will have their own experience and vision of the facts that occurred. They do not have a notion of what is happening, which leads them and the other children to think that this evacuation is a holiday or even a form of punishment and they do not understand that a war is happening. And with this, you can see the disregard that there is for these children, because not even their own parents communicate what is happening, and along with the action of sending them to this new and unknown place, where they may or may not be protected, it increases the fear among them all. The idea of the new and unknown generated by the place in the children, in the future, will be used in the girls' decision to go to the forest that is close to the mansion, which will be the place to which they are assigned in the interior. This archetype of exploring the world is very common in children. Penny and Primrose are girls from the big city and it is told throughout the story that they have never had contact with nature itself and from this they feel the need to see the world with their own eyes.

    The forest is described as a place of difficult access, giving a feeling of forbidden and unknown, being described with a large fence around it. And then, when there is the initiative to enter the forest, a little girl named Alys, who has come to meet the two girls from nowhere. There are two factors in which this character is considered enigmatic:

1. Her name is inspired by "Alice in Wonderland," which is referenced throughout the story. Alys refutes some and comments that her name is "Alice" with a "Y" and spells it out for everyone. 

2. She is not seen, during the course of the story, either before or after she enters the forest. This makes the reader and the girls doubt if the girl was a real person, because the girls only remember Alys after the girl is lost. So we can go back to the idea of the book "Alice in Wonderland", in which in the story Alice also gets lost due to her curiosity about following a rabbit. Again we see the author's implication in in relation to the work itself, using the themes of children's curiosity, imagination, and magic. 

3. Finally, the fact that nobody is taking care of this little girl. According to the story, she will be described as "barely out of dippers", which means that she was a very young girl. With this, it will be expressed that, even though she is almost a "babe", no one will actually be responsible for this child.

    The thing about this part, in which Alys appears, is that she "appeared" out of nowhere. And she insists on going into the woods along with Penny and Primrose. It is explicit that the girls do not want her presence around, as she is too young and could get lost. However, the three girls end up going to the forest.

    A contrast will be generated between the girls going to the forest, the idea of discovery / exploration and urban life will be worked, even if it is not cited directly. The forest will be described thoroughly, because it is a place they have never been, first with the scents, then the sound, the environmental organization and finally the climate, leaving the girls with a sense of danger, describing it also as something disturbing. And this organization will also be applied in the monster encounter, being observed, by the girls, first, its smell, which will be treated as a warning and an indication of danger. From this we will get a description of the creature, which portrays a mixture of the natural world and the fantasy world. It is portrayed as having human parts, mechanical parts, wearing a gas mask, and also compared as if it were something more medieval, a dragon. The use of the child in this context will be really well employed. We have a basic notion that a child doesn't have a very developed vocabulary and with that he tends to describe the world and things around him with his little brief knowledge of life. Even thinking about the use of the title of the story, the adoption of the English term "thing" will be something used by a child, because this term means thing and this is interpreted in different ways. This term not only creates numerous difficulties for the children in the story in the process of description, but also for the reader himself who may also have numerous interpretations regarding this monster. After that encounter with the monster, Penny and Primrose run away from the forest without Alys' presence. From that , it doesn't matter if she was a real character in the story or not, the only certainty we have is that the thing in the forest has her. The curious thing is that after this moment in the story, the two girls no longer talk to each other. This could be generated by the disbelief that they themselves must have about what they saw in the forest, and may be considered by them as figments of their own imagination. Following this event, we will have each one's description of their return to their homes, leaving the mansion behind. The theory, in which Penny and Primrose's lives are similar and dissimilar comparisons at the same time, becomes evident with this homecoming. Both girls' parents die, however Primrose's mother manages to get over it, while Penny's mother does not. Penny and Primrose will take different paths through life, yet they will clash in a similar way. They are totally different people, with very different behaviors and beliefs, yet they manage to convey an idea of only one individual in a symbiotic relationship. In adulthood, Penny decides to go to college and study psychology, with a specialization in child psychology. Primrose, on the other hand, does not go to school and in the future will not go to college, she will become known as the storyteller of the town in which she lived. Penny and Primrose will have absorbed this experience of the forest in different ways. For example, Penny will try to examine what happened in the forest through logic, trying to understand what really happened, and Primrose will interpret what happened through a more magical side of things and accept it for what it is, causing her to move on with her life. Surprisingly, after a while, a sudden event, the death of both mothers, brings the two together again, now as adults. As a result, they decide to visit the mansion where they had been sent. When they arrive at the mansion, it is discovered that it has become a museum with the purpose of remembering the events that occurred in the past. This remembrance of the museum tends to remind them of the problems of the past and the adventures they had. However, there is no mention of the children who lived there, recalling the idea of forgetfulness, abandonment and carelessness generated by the coming of those children. From this we get the idea of a lost, abandoned, or even forgotten childhood. Penny and Primrose have the idea that they are left behind, that they are not remembered. Continuously, they find a medieval book in which there is a description of a creature that lives in the vicinity of that region. All of this takes up the idea of fairy tales and fantasy. In the book, the monster is named "worm", which had infested the countryside. Coincidentally, the description of the monster ends up matching the girls' memories. And the idea of this monster can also be represented by the loss of innocence experienced by the girls. For example, the traumas that cause a child to early maturity, which in the case of the short story was the war. And it is from the description of the monster that the girls claim to have seen the monster and begin to discuss its existence. The appearance of this creature was a turning point in their lives, something that shaped, willingly or not, the course of their lives.

    And with these memories, we get the first mention of Alys, not mentioned again until this point. For Primrose, there is a doubt whether this girl really existed, because she doesn't know if the girl was the embodiment of her own personality or was something more tangible. For Penny, on the other hand, Alys was someone real. And all of this opens up a line of reasoning between the two, the idea that they were not crazy, but it also opens up the hypothesis that they abandoned Alys to die in the forest. It is interesting this dynamic that occurs between the two, because it is stated that many years have passed and the only thing they have in common is their childhood, a time that is already over, and the memory/trauma caused by the monster. Other than that, they have nothing else in common. And from this common interest, they decide to go back to the forest, but they will explore it alone, without each other's company. We then have two different views of the forest:

1. One of Primrose, who portrays it as a magical place worthy of fairy tales and ends up showing that this character has a need to believe in these magical elements, being, for her, the encounter with the monster being located in a magical forest. 

2. However, Penny has a more realistic view of the forest, she can see the true nature that that forest represents, the reality that a forest is made up of, animals, insects, plants and so on. And we see that this reflects the need to really find the thing.

     These two worldviews together can explain the way in which Penny and Primrose express themselves in the world. Penny tries to be a person who is considered more useful in society, this is shown when she becomes a child psychologist. She tries to treat these children with traumas generated in the past. Primrose, on the other hand, working as a storyteller, has the role of enchanting and softening the problems that a child goes through, problems that she understands on her own. Later, after returning from the forest, they meet at the train station and end their relationship. This ends up having as an agenda the process of estrangement suffered by the two and the fact that everything they believed in had differences between them. For example, Penny being represented with a true view of the facts Primrose's worldview clashes with the reality she sees, and vice versa. Thus, in order for Penny to prove the existence of the creature, she must discard the ideas generated by Primrose and this makes her return to the forest. But in the end we do not know what happens to her, leaving the story open to the reader's thoughts.

    It is concluded that, the tale addresses several themes, such as, world history, fairy tales, and the use of memory, to build the basis of its narrative. Even using the idea of personal discovery and the development of one's own identity and how actions in the past help shape who we are today. However, it will also be the idea of how the worldview and memories change according to each individual, which will be the resource used to have a contrast between fact and fiction. It will be this process of duality that generates fantastic elements to the story, because we will never know if the thing was real or just the fruit of two children's imagination. With this, there can be a debate to discuss which reality is obtained, but there will always be several interpretations depending on each person and how the reader is exposed to the work.

P.S: This is one of my college projects. I chose to translate my project because I realy enjoy reading the story and that made me fell in love with literature. I also want to say thank you to Nicole Swann for explaning some points of the story that weren't very clear to me. And I want to say to my literature professor thank you for showing this story to me! Keep doing a great job! 

REFERENCES: 

1. SWANN, Nicole. ThingForest: Close Reading pt 1. You tube, 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVEUJNzWOTc . Accessed October 23, 2022. 

2. SWANN, Nicole. ThingForest: Close Reading pt 2. You tube, 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v10vt2ypU4 . Accessed October 23, 2022. 

3. SWANN, Nicole. ThingForest: Close Reading pt 3. You tube, 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icki_pwmmR4 . Accessed October 23, 2022. 

4. SWANN, Nicole. ThingForest: Close Reading pt 4. You tube, 2020. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhydDJDlb8g . Accessed October 23, 2022. 

5. The Thing in the Forest Summary & Analysis. LitCharts, 2018. Available at: https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-thing-in-the-forest/summary-and-analysis . Accessed on: October 23, 2022