The Thing in the Forest

“There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest.” 

This line is at the heart of “The Thing in the Forest.” While there is a question as to whether the “thing” was a real or imaginary creature, the effects of Penny and Primrose’s experience are very real. The opening line situates the two child protagonists and their main antagonist foremost in the minds of readers.

“So the mothers (who did not resemble each other at all) behaved alike, and explained nothing—it was easier. Their daughters, they knew, were little girls, who would not be able to understand or imagine.”

Despite the many differences between Primrose and Penny’s mothers, this is one key point of similarity. The women are united by their fear for their children’s physical and psychological safety. However, they fail to consider the stories their children might tell themselves about the conflict. They discount the power of the childhood imagination to substitute the real horrors with even stranger imaginary ones.

“Penny and Primrose managed to get a seat together, although it was over the wheel, and both of them began to feel sick as the bus bumped along snaking country lanes, under whipping branches, with torn strips of thin cloud streaming across a full moon.”

One of the less prominent literary devices Byatt employs is personification. This device works in tandem with similes and symbols to evoke the real-life war that inspired this story. The whole world now seems full of violence to the children—even the branches striking the train as if they were humans wielding whips. The snaking movement of the bus also hints at the hidden magic that lies in everyday things—the magic that lies beyond the real.