Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

by

Ransom Riggs

A wight is a type of hollowgast which has consumed many peculiars. Wights have no peculiar abilities and largely appear as human, except for their eyes, which are completely white. Their purpose in life is to help procure peculiars for hollowgast to eat. Late in the book, it is revealed that Dr. Golan is a wight.

Wight Quotes in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

The Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children quotes below are all either spoken by Wight or refer to Wight. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Coming of Age and Self-Confidence Theme Icon
).
Chapter 9 Quotes

I was moved by this new idea of my grandfather, not as a paranoiac gun nut or a secretive philanderer or a man who wasn’t there for his family, but as a wandering knight who risked his life for others, living out of cars and cheap motels, stalking lethal shadows, coming home shy a few bullets and marked with bruises he could never quite explain and nightmares he couldn’t talk about. For his many sacrifices, he received only scorn and suspicion from those he loved.

Related Characters: Jacob Portman (speaker), Abe Portman/Jacob’s Grandfather, Miss Alma Peregrine, Jacob’s Dad
Page Number: 255
Explanation and Analysis:

I wanted to explain everything, and for him to tell me he understood and offer some tidbit of parental advice. I wanted, in that moment, for everything to go back to the way it had been before we came here; before I ever found that letter from Miss Peregrine, back when I was just a sort-of-normal messed-up rich kid in the suburbs. Instead, I sat next to my dad for awhile and talked about nothing, and I tried to remember what my life had been like in that unfathomably distant era that was four weeks ago, or imagine what it might be like four weeks from now—but I couldn’t. Eventually we ran out of nothing to talk about, and I excused myself and went upstairs to be alone.

Related Characters: Jacob Portman (speaker), Miss Alma Peregrine, Jacob’s Dad
Page Number: 268
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

Emma stood up and shut the door. “She won’t kill us,” she said, “those things will. And if they don’t, living like this might just be worse than dying. The Bird’s got us cooped up so tight we can hardly breathe, and all because she doesn’t have the spleen to face whatever’s out there!”

Related Characters: Emma Bloom/The Girl (speaker), Jacob Portman, Miss Alma Peregrine, Miss Avocet
Related Symbols: The Home
Page Number: 282
Explanation and Analysis:

“Is this what you want?” Golan shouted. “Go ahead, burn me! The birds will burn, too! Shoot me and I’ll throw them over the side!”

“Not if I shoot you in the head!”

He laughed. “You couldn’t fire a gun if you wanted to. You forget, I’m intimately familiar with your poor, fragile psyche. It’d give you nightmares.”

I tried to imagine it: curling my finger around the trigger and squeezing; the recoil and the awful report. What was so hard about that? Why did my hand shake just thinking about it? How many wights had my grandfather killed? Dozens? Hundreds? If he were here instead of me, Golan would be dead already, laid out while he’d been squatting against the rail in a daze. It was an opportunity I’d already wasted; a split-second of gutless indecision that might’ve cost the ymbrynes their lives.

Related Characters: Jacob Portman (speaker), Dr. Golan/The Birder (speaker), Abe Portman/Jacob’s Grandfather, Emma Bloom/The Girl, Miss Alma Peregrine, Miss Avocet
Page Number: 324
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

In the next boat, I saw Bronwyn wave and raise Miss Peregrine’s camera to her eye. I smiled back. We’d brought none of the old photo albums with us; maybe this would be the first picture in a brand new one. It was strange to think that one day I might have my own stack of yellowed photos to show skeptical grandchildren—and my own fantastic stories to share.

Then Bronwyn lowered the camera and raised her arm, pointing at something beyond us. In the distance, black against the rising sun, a silent procession of battleships punctuated the horizon.

We rowed faster.

Related Characters: Jacob Portman (speaker), Miss Alma Peregrine, Bronwyn, Miss Avocet
Related Symbols: The Home, Pictures
Page Number: 352
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children LitChart as a printable PDF.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children PDF

Wight Term Timeline in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

The timeline below shows where the term Wight appears in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
...girl and another person, a young man, are arguing, saying that Jacob must be a wight—that no relative of Abe’s would be as clueless as he is. Just then, the dog... (full context)
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
...loop. Emma says Jacob clearly isn’t from their world and that he must be a wight, but Jacob assures her he is not. (full context)
Chapter 9
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
Family Theme Icon
...Miss Peregrine, before she remembers that she came to warn them about a pair of wights who invaded their loop. They barricaded Miss Avocet inside the house and dragged the children... (full context)
Mortality and Meaning Theme Icon
...on the flesh of other peculiars. If a hollow eats enough peculiars, it becomes a wight. (full context)
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
Mortality and Meaning Theme Icon
Wights, Miss Peregrine explains, have no peculiar abilities, but they pass for human, so they can... (full context)
Mortality and Meaning Theme Icon
Truth vs. Deception Theme Icon
...how the man could have known he was peculiar. Miss Peregrine explains that if the wights knew about his grandfather, they most certainly know about Jacob, too. Jacob starts to feel... (full context)
Chapter 10
Truth vs. Deception Theme Icon
...was wearing sunglasses at night. Jacob realizes then that the birder is almost certainly a wight, and he has to get back to Miss Peregrine. (full context)
Coming of Age and Self-Confidence Theme Icon
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
Family Theme Icon
...to return to the town, Miss Peregrine refuses to let him leave as well—if the wights are following Jacob, he could be putting the children at risk. Jacob explains he needs... (full context)
Coming of Age and Self-Confidence Theme Icon
Family Theme Icon
Mortality and Meaning Theme Icon
...stays out too long, she’ll age very rapidly. But she wants to fight against the wights and the hollows—she explains that “living like this might just be worse than dying.” She... (full context)
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
Millard protests, saying that they have no idea how to find the wights or the hollows—even though Jacob can see them, he doesn’t necessarily know where to find... (full context)
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
Mortality and Meaning Theme Icon
...Jacob remembers Horace’s prophetic dream of the apocalypse and realizes what might happen if the wights and hollows fail again. Golan goes on, saying that the peculiars shouldn’t have to hide... (full context)
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
...water. The lighthouse light passes over them, and Jacob sees that the soldier is a wight—he has no irises. The soldier grabs the cage and pulls out one bird. The other,... (full context)
Chapter 11
Mortality and Meaning Theme Icon
...powers. They decide that the best course of action is to figure out where the wights are taking the ymbrynes. Horace starts to draw a scene from his dreams with the... (full context)
Coming of Age and Self-Confidence Theme Icon
Magic, Belonging, and Protection Theme Icon
...place, while Enoch thinks it’s too risky. But Emma insists that if they stay, the wights and hollows will simply return. Emma suggests that finding another ymbryne can help them fix... (full context)
Coming of Age and Self-Confidence Theme Icon
...thinks that even if he goes home, that world would still be dangerous, threatened by wights, and he would live in constant fear for his family. Or, he could go with... (full context)