A.S. Byatt’s Gothic short story investigates the human psyche and its ability to cope with the emotions that come from loss. Byatt organizes her story into three different sections separated by the meetings of the two main characters, Penny and Primrose. The first is the break when the two young girls meet for the first time giving each other someone to hang on to. The second is when they meet again later in their years, at the same location they stayed so many years ago. These meetings are surrounded by severer loss with both the girls. Byatt looks into many different types of loss throughout her story. The very first appearance of loss is when the two little girls are ripped from their homes and everything they know as a result of the war going on in London. The two little girls in there frail emotional state hook onto the first thing that seams real and true, each other. Keeping hold of their newfound companionship the two girls grab beds next to one another and hold hope of being placed in the same home. The next day the two girls go to play in the yard with the other kids. They decide to go explore the forest beyond the gate of the property. While in the forest they “see” a grotesque worm like creature, which causes them to be in a state of silent shock. The young girls leave the forest and the mansion without one word to one another. This leads us to the next example of loss, they loss of one another and their only stability in this hard time. The two girls were first split by the traumatic “sighting” of the creature in the woods and then sent to different homes to wait out the war. Bringing us too our third form of loss, the loss that comes from a result of war. When the war was over the two girls where sent ...
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...e your eyes and imagine a vast green forest, the smell of deep rooted plants, and the light shining in through the rustling leaves. Imagine the sound of branches snapping below your soft footsteps as you walk the path less traveled. Imagine a place where anything can be possible. Byatt’s opening line helps you imagine all the magic a forest can hold. “There were once two little girls who saw, or believed they saw, a thing in a forest,” leads the reader to have an open mind of both fiction and non-fiction. She does not say the normal “Once Upon a time…” fairy tale opening, but at the same time her first line nether rule out or confesses that her story is not in fact a reality. I feel that by doing this it gives the reader the option to choose for themselves whether its real or make believe, making this story perfect for argumentative discussion on many levels.
Misery, trauma, and isolation all have connections to the war time settings in “The Thing in the Forest.” In the short story, A.S. Byatt depicts elements captured from both fairy tale and horror genres in war times. During World War II, the two young girls Penny and Primrose endure the 1940s Blitz together but in different psychological ways. In their childhood, they learn how to use gas masks and carry their belongings in oversized suitcases. Both Penny and Primrose suffer psychologically effects by being isolated from their families’ before and after the war. Byatt depicts haunting effects in her short story by placing graphic details on the girls’ childhood experiences. Maria Margaronis, an author of a critical essay entitled “Where the Wild Things Are,” states that “Byatt’s tales of the supernatural depend on an almost hallucinatory precision for their haunting effects.” The hallucinatory details Byatt displays in her story have an almost unbelievable psychological reality for the girls. Penny and Primrose endure the psychological consequences and horrifying times during the Blitz along with the magical ideas they encounter as children. As adults they must return to the forest of their childhood and as individuals and take separate paths to confront the Thing, acknowledge its significance in their childhoods, and release themselves from the grip of the psychological trauma of war.
Louise, the unfortunate spouse of Brently Mallard dies of a supposed “heart disease.” Upon the doctor’s diagnosis, it is the death of a “joy that kills.” This is a paradox of happiness resulting into a dreadful ending. Nevertheless, in reality it is actually the other way around. Of which, is the irony of Louise dying due to her suffering from a massive amount of depression knowing her husband is not dead, but alive. This is the prime example to show how women are unfairly treated. If it is logical enough for a wife to be this jovial about her husband’s mournful state of life then she must be in a marriage of never-ending nightmares. This shows how terribly the wife is being exploited due her gender in the relationship. As a result of a female being treated or perceived in such a manner, she will often times lose herself like the “girl
Byatt starts off by telling the reader that the girl, Primrose and Penny, were evacuees from the air raids on Britain and that they were by themselves. This allows the readers to start getting the feel for the scared children. Upon arriving at the mansion the two girls made a pact to stay together, “It’s like were orphans, she said to Penny. But we’re not. Penny said, If we manage to stay together….” (Byatt 353). Once allowed to go, the girls went out to wonder the forest, showing their independence and pushing away Alys in the process. The Thing appears scarring Primrose and Penny, then Byatt pushes to the girls’ departure. Once the girls came back the when on a tour seeing each other. Showing that they still are not orphans because they still have each other. This can also be shown when we figure out each girl is still single. They decide to go looking for the Thing but have no luck. Primrose gets caught up in the magic of the forest and tries to figure out what Penny meant by the Thing being more real than themselves. What can be concluded from her thoughts were that she has a connection to the forest and she wants to regain what she lost. Penny finds the “den” of the Thing and finds reminds of its victims. She tries to confront the Thing but she concluded nothing else was there for her and that it was their way of
While Roberta in particular carries the guilt of not being sure if she was a contributor to the violence against Maggie and therefore wrestles with what that means about her as a person, in “The Thing in the Forest”, both women struggle with the idea that they were responsible for what happened to Alys, yet focus more on what the creature was and how they can each prevent what happened to Alys from happening to anyone else. In “Recitatif”, the women show their guilt by bringing up what happened as they meet again and again. Everything else comes and goes from their conversations, but as soon as Maggie is brought up, neither woman can escape her. In “The Thing in the Forest”, this is demonstrated by how each woman has reacted to their new situation, going through life knowing that such horrifying creatures exist. Penny is far more of a realist, she became “good at studying what could not be seen” (Byatt 364). Primrose, on the other hand, leans into the fantasy of it all, telling children the story of what happened to her as a way of warning them. This works to emphasize the most basic difference between the two women, realist versus
Derricotte’s conclusive paragraph begins with, “My mother helps me. She sends me signs: her African violet bloomed for the first time on my windowsill three years after her death, on the first day of her death month…I love my mother now in ways I could not have loved her when she was alive, fierce, terrifying, unpredictable, mad, shame-inducing, self-involved, relentless, and determined by any means necessary” (53). The timing of her love for her mother became insignificant. It wasn’t about when she finally reached the point of loving her mother but the mere fact that she loved her. The utilization of descriptive writing and the emotional implementation in “Beginning Dialogues” are a couple of ways Derricotte enraptures her readers in this short story. Regardless of a painful past or a traumatic childhood she allows herself to see that love truly conquers
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
It is the first time that Lizabeth hears a man cry. She could not believe herself because her father is “a strong man who could whisk a child upon his shoulders and go singing through the house.” As the centre of the family and a hero in her heart, Lizabeth’s dad is “sobbing like the tiniest child”She discovers that her parents are not as powerful or stable as she thought they were. The feeling of powerlessness and fear surges within her as she loses the perfect relying on her dad. She says, “the world had lost its boundary lines.” the “smoldering emotions” and “fear unleashed by my father’s tears” had “combined in one great impulse toward
Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” is a haunting poem that tells the story of a seemingly perfect wife who dies, and then is immortalized in a picture by her kind and loving husband. This seems to be the perfect family that a tragic accident has destroyed. Upon further investigation and dissection of the poem, we discover the imperfections and this perfect “dream family” is shown for what it really was, a relationship without trust.
One topic explored is death, “The women in your family have never lost touch with one another. Death is a path we take to meet on the other side.” (194) Death may be one of, if not the worst tragedies in life, but here the narrator creates a perspective that beautifies the awful tragedy of death. The after life becomes a reunion for those who have passed. It almost conveys dying as a happening to look forward to, to be able to connect with the other women who to have passed away. This uplifting point of view adds hope for even those facing
This poem is a firsthand account of how Anne Bradstreet was feeling when she experienced the loss of her granddaughter, Elizabeth. Although Bradstreet's attitude on Elizabeth's death seems to reflect her belief in God's plan, the diction suggests otherwise.
...e complete without the care and heartache handed them by the families they gain and lose throughout the courses of their short lives. Woolf states it perfectly, realizing that “life is but a procession of shadows, and God knows why it is that we embrace them so eagerly, and see them depart with such anguish, being shadows... Such is the manner of our seeing. Such the conditions of our love” (Woolf, 96). Jacob is only partially loved and cared for by his mother, and therefore carries this half-affection into his social interactions, eventually regretting the supremely human act of falling in love. Likewise, Chris is two completely different people between Margaret and Kitty– loving and content with Margaret, once he is returned to reality he becomes one of the “brittle beautiful things” that Kitty so loves to have in her presence, a mere shadow of his soul (West, 6).
The story begins as the boy describes his neighborhood. Immediately feelings of isolation and hopelessness begin to set in. The street that the boy lives on is a dead end, right from the beginning he is trapped. In addition, he feels ignored by the houses on his street. Their brown imperturbable faces make him feel excluded from the decent lives within them. The street becomes a representation of the boy’s self, uninhabited and detached, with the houses personified, and arguably more alive than the residents (Gray). Every detail of his neighborhood seems designed to inflict him with the feeling of isolation. The boy's house, like the street he lives on, is filled with decay. It is suffocating and “musty from being long enclosed.” It is difficult for him to establish any sort of connection to it. Even the history of the house feels unkind. The house's previous tenant, a priest, had died while living there. He “left all his money to institutions and the furniture of the house to his sister (Norton Anthology 2236).” It was as if he was trying to insure the boy's boredom and solitude. The only thing of interest that the boy can find is a bicycle pump, which is rusty and rendered unfit to play with. Even the “wild” garden is gloomy and desolate, containing but a lone apple tree and a few straggling bushes. It is hardly the sort of yard that a young boy would want. Like most boys, he has no voice in choosing where he lives, yet his surroundings have a powerful effect on him.
Mrs. Mallard’s repressed married life is a secret that she keeps to herself. She is not open and honest with her sister Josephine who has shown nothing but concern. This is clearly evident in the great care that her sister and husband’s friend Richard show to break the news of her husband’s tragic death as gently as they can. They think that she is so much in love with him that hearing the news of his death would aggravate her poor heart condition and lead to death. Little do they know that she did not love him dearly at all and in fact took the news in a very positive way, opening her arms to welcome a new life without her husband. This can be seen in the fact that when she storms into her room and her focus shifts drastically from that of her husband’s death to nature that is symbolic of new life and possibilities awaiting her. Her senses came to life; they come alive to the beauty in the nature. Her eyes could reach the vastness of the sky; she could smell the delicious breath of rain in the air; and ears became attentive to a song f...
Clarissa’s memories of Bourton, of her youth, are brought back to her vividly by just the “squeak of the hinges”. . . [and] she had burst open the French windows and plunged at Bourton into the open air” (3). The intensity of these memories is what makes them so much a part of what she is– everything in life reminds her of Bourton, of Sally Seton, of Peter Walsh. Peter and Sally were her best friends as a girl, and “with the two of them”. . . she shared her past.... ...
It was a calm, overcast day, and I found myself resting at the side of a large oak tree, admiring the beauty of the woods that surrounded me.