The Thing in the Forest

by

A.S. Byatt

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

The Thing in the Forest Quotes

Need another quote?
Need analysis on another quote?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
Need analysis for a quote we don't cover?
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
A LitCharts expert can help.
Request it
Request it
Request analysis
Request analysis
Request analysis
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:

It was the encounter with the Thing that had led her to deal professionally in dreams. Something that resembled unreality had lumbered into reality, and she had seen it.

Related Characters: Penny
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

When it came, she would look it in the face, she would see what it was. She clasped her hands loosely in her lap. Her nerves relaxed. Her blood slowed. She was ready.

Related Characters: Penny, Alys
Related Symbols: The Thing in the Forest (The Loathly Worm), Forest
Page Number: 43
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:
No matches.