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The Thing In The Forest Analysis

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Byatt and Baldwin focus on deep psychological traumas, which originate from early childhood, and their overcoming by main characters who share many similarities. These similarities are: depressive atmosphere in which main characters of Byatt and Baldwin were raised, where behavior of the father or mother plays an important roles for personalities of main characters. This essay will focus on how depressing atmosphere in childhood affects the further life and how people with similar childhood but different nature choose to cope with their problems. Settings of Baldwin’s “Sonny Blues” and Byatt’s “The thing in the forest” are similar in terms of depressive atmosphere in which main characters were placed being a children. During the Blitz two little girls Penny and Primrose were evacuated from an endangered city to the countryside for the sake of their security. Girls had to deal with being away from their families. Byatt describes mansion as uncomfortable place for children: “there were no lighting, all windows were shuttered”, “Everyone was tired and anxious and orphaned” (Byatt 226).Both girls felt suffering and afraid “suffocating anxiety about what would happen if they wanted to pee in the middle of the night”, “they were afraid that in the dark other children would turn in the gang (Byatt 226). In much the same way, narrator and Sonny have grown up in depressive atmosphere of mostly black and extremely poor place in Harlem at the time when African American

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