The Thing in the Forest

by

A.S. Byatt

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Thing in the Forest makes teaching easy.

Primrose Character Analysis

One of the two main characters, Primrose is a young girl at the beginning of the story who is evacuated from London with a group of children to escape the German bombing of London during World War II. She ventures into the woods with her new friend, Penny, and together the two see the Thing in the forest (i.e., the loathly worm). Like Penny’s father, Primrose’s father is also killed in the war, and her mother remarries, having five more children whom Primrose has to help raise. This robs her of a carefree childhood—something which the evacuation and her encounter with the loathly worm had already jeopardized. Thus, Primrose grows up to lead a carefree adulthood, working odd jobs and living in an austere apartment. Her one talent is storytelling, and she does this for a living, entertaining children at parties and at a local shopping mall. Her life is only carefree on the surface, however, for Primrose was also traumatized by her childhood, and cannot forget her encounter with the loathly worm. When she returns to the forest as an adult and does not find the worm, this bothers her less than it bothers Penny. Unlike Penny, who feels she must come face-to-face with the worm to overcome her trauma, Primrose relies on her imagination, recasting herself as confident and self-reliant, and the forest as a place of “glamour” rather than terror. After revisiting the forest as an adult, Primrose returns to her life with a sense of closure. In the final scene, she tells a group of children a story about “two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest,” thereby opening herself to the possibility that she had only imagined the worm. Primrose overcomes her trauma by looking inward rather than outward, and by relinquishing her need to find a clear answer to the question of whether or not the worm was real.

Primrose Quotes in The Thing in the Forest

The The Thing in the Forest quotes below are all either spoken by Primrose or refer to Primrose. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Trauma and Loss Theme Icon
).
The Thing in the Forest Quotes

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

Related Characters: Penny, Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

They remembered the thing they had seen in the forest, on the contrary, in the way you remember those very few dreams—almost all nightmares—that have the quality of life itself. (Though what are dreams if not life itself?)

Related Characters: Penny, Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

I think, I think there are things that are real—more real than we are—but mostly we don’t cross their paths, or they don’t cross ours. Maybe at very bad times we get into their world, or notice what they are doing in ours.

Related Characters: Penny (speaker), Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm)
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:

“Sometimes I think that thing finished me off,” said Penny to Primrose, a child’s voice rising in a woman’s gullet, arousing a little girl’s scared smile which wasn’t a smile on Primrose’s face.

Related Characters: Penny (speaker), Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm)
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

She believed in Father Christmas, and the discovery that her mother had made the toys, the vanishing of magic, had been a breathtaking blow. She could not be grateful for the skill and the imagination, so uncharacteristic of her flirtatious mother.

Related Characters: Primrose
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

Primrose knew that glamour and the thing they had seen, brilliance and the ashen stink, came from the same place.

Related Characters: Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

Primrose sat on the edge of the fountain. She had decided what to do. She smiled her best, most comfortable smile, and adjusted her golden locks. Listen to me, she told them, and I’ll tell you something amazing, a story that’s never been told before.

Related Characters: Primrose (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm)
Page Number: 43-44
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Thing in the Forest LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Thing in the Forest PDF

Primrose Quotes in The Thing in the Forest

The The Thing in the Forest quotes below are all either spoken by Primrose or refer to Primrose. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Trauma and Loss Theme Icon
).
The Thing in the Forest Quotes

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

Related Characters: Penny, Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

They remembered the thing they had seen in the forest, on the contrary, in the way you remember those very few dreams—almost all nightmares—that have the quality of life itself. (Though what are dreams if not life itself?)

Related Characters: Penny, Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:

I think, I think there are things that are real—more real than we are—but mostly we don’t cross their paths, or they don’t cross ours. Maybe at very bad times we get into their world, or notice what they are doing in ours.

Related Characters: Penny (speaker), Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm)
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:

“Sometimes I think that thing finished me off,” said Penny to Primrose, a child’s voice rising in a woman’s gullet, arousing a little girl’s scared smile which wasn’t a smile on Primrose’s face.

Related Characters: Penny (speaker), Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm)
Page Number: 25
Explanation and Analysis:

She believed in Father Christmas, and the discovery that her mother had made the toys, the vanishing of magic, had been a breathtaking blow. She could not be grateful for the skill and the imagination, so uncharacteristic of her flirtatious mother.

Related Characters: Primrose
Page Number: 30
Explanation and Analysis:

Primrose knew that glamour and the thing they had seen, brilliance and the ashen stink, came from the same place.

Related Characters: Primrose
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 32
Explanation and Analysis:

Primrose sat on the edge of the fountain. She had decided what to do. She smiled her best, most comfortable smile, and adjusted her golden locks. Listen to me, she told them, and I’ll tell you something amazing, a story that’s never been told before.

Related Characters: Primrose (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm)
Page Number: 43-44
Explanation and Analysis: