Annihilation

by

Jeff VanderMeer

The Anthropologist Character Analysis

The anthropologist is one of the members of the twelfth expedition into Area X. The anthropologist was formerly an architect, and the biologist reveals that she doesn’t think the anthropologist has the same kind of mental toughness as the other members of the expedition. The evening after first exploring the Tower, the psychologist hypnotizes the anthropologist to get her to return to the tower to take a sample of the Crawler, but the creature ends up killing her. Later, the surveyor believes that she sees the anthropologist and tries to kill her again.

The Anthropologist Quotes in Annihilation

The Annihilation quotes below are all either spoken by The Anthropologist or refer to The Anthropologist. 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:
The Sublime vs. The Mundane Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Far worse, though, was a low, powerful moaning at dusk. The wind off the sea and the odd interior stillness dulled our ability to gauge direction, so that the sound seemed to infiltrate the black water that soaked the cypress trees. This water was so dark we could see our faces in it, and it never stirred, set like glass, reflecting the beards of gray moss that smothered the cypress trees. If you looked out through these areas, toward the ocean, all you saw was the black water, the gray of the cypress trunks, and the constant, motionless rain of moss flowing down. All you heard was the low moaning. The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.

Related Characters: The Biologist (speaker), The Psychologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist
Page Number: 5-6
Explanation and Analysis:

Most important, however, I now could guess at one way in which the spores had affected me: They had made me immune to the psychologist’s hypnotic suggestions. They had made me into a kind of conspirator against her. Even if her purposes were benign, I felt a wave of anxiety whenever I thought of confessing that I was resistant to hypnosis—especially since it meant any underlying conditioning hidden in our training also was affecting me less and less.

I now hid not one but two secrets, and that meant I was steadily, irrevocably, becoming estranged from the expedition and its purpose.

Related Characters: The Biologist (speaker), The Psychologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist
Related Symbols: The Tower/The Tunnel
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

How what we had seen below could coexist with the mundane was baffling. It was as if we had come up too fast from a deep-sea dive but it was the memories of the creatures we had seen that had given us the bends.

Related Characters: The Biologist (speaker), The Psychologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist
Related Symbols: The Tower/The Tunnel
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Anthropologist Quotes in Annihilation

The Annihilation quotes below are all either spoken by The Anthropologist or refer to The Anthropologist. 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:
The Sublime vs. The Mundane Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Far worse, though, was a low, powerful moaning at dusk. The wind off the sea and the odd interior stillness dulled our ability to gauge direction, so that the sound seemed to infiltrate the black water that soaked the cypress trees. This water was so dark we could see our faces in it, and it never stirred, set like glass, reflecting the beards of gray moss that smothered the cypress trees. If you looked out through these areas, toward the ocean, all you saw was the black water, the gray of the cypress trunks, and the constant, motionless rain of moss flowing down. All you heard was the low moaning. The effect of this cannot be understood without being there. The beauty of it cannot be understood, either, and when you see beauty in desolation it changes something inside you. Desolation tries to colonize you.

Related Characters: The Biologist (speaker), The Psychologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist
Page Number: 5-6
Explanation and Analysis:

Most important, however, I now could guess at one way in which the spores had affected me: They had made me immune to the psychologist’s hypnotic suggestions. They had made me into a kind of conspirator against her. Even if her purposes were benign, I felt a wave of anxiety whenever I thought of confessing that I was resistant to hypnosis—especially since it meant any underlying conditioning hidden in our training also was affecting me less and less.

I now hid not one but two secrets, and that meant I was steadily, irrevocably, becoming estranged from the expedition and its purpose.

Related Characters: The Biologist (speaker), The Psychologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist
Related Symbols: The Tower/The Tunnel
Page Number: 18
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

How what we had seen below could coexist with the mundane was baffling. It was as if we had come up too fast from a deep-sea dive but it was the memories of the creatures we had seen that had given us the bends.

Related Characters: The Biologist (speaker), The Psychologist, The Surveyor, The Anthropologist
Related Symbols: The Tower/The Tunnel
Page Number: 68
Explanation and Analysis: