Analyzing A.

S Byatts A Thing in the Forest

What if one day something happened to you that was so scary you never forgot about it? Then years later you still think about, still look back and did not quite understand what it was that happened to you? What would you do? In the story, A Thing in the Forest, by A.S. Byatt, there are two girls who encounter what they think is a monster in the forest when they were younger, and when they grew up, reflected on their past. It was such a traumatizing experience to them because the monster is actually a symbol for war that they had to experience at a young age. There are two different ways you can handle a situation like this. Primrose, for instance, let go of the past, even though she still thought about it she knew it was in the past. However, Penny let it eat her up from the inside out. She had to confront this monster once again, ending with her life being taken away. A.S. Byatt uses a form of a fairy tale to tell this story. This form can be related to a psychoanalytic approach. Byatt also uses symbols throughout this whole story and the theme is a moral at the end. Samantha Matthews writes an article called, Monsters, Trolls, and Creative Writers, which is about the symbols of war and how it relates to the girls, Penny and Primrose, and their experience as they were younger. She also talks about how Byatt writes this story in a form of a fairy tale. Although there are many ways to interpret this story, the symbols associated with war, the theme or moral of the story, and the idea of fairy tale vs reality are the ones that stand out the most.