The Thing in the Forest

Despite its third person narrator, the story maintains a childlike view of the war. Byatt accomplishes this through indirect references to the conflict—often, through similes. One example is an early description of the children navigating the platform “[…] like a disorderly dwarf regiment” (3). This invokes the military imagery of armies marshaling to defend their homeland but also distances it through the use of fantasy creatures. These similes are crucial in creating the story’s physical setting.

Primrose and Penny’s encounter with the Loathly Worm also relies heavily on simile. It is a creature unlike anything they have ever encountered, and they must invent a description based on things it reminds them of. The simile is the perfect literary device for this task, and they use a combination of descriptions to represent a creature that is itself an amalgamation of horrors. The result is a visceral image that appeals to the reader’s imagination and sensory memory: “[…] liquid putrefaction, the smell of maggoty things […] blocked drains, mixed with the smell of bad eggs, and rotten carpets” (8).