A Week in the Woods

Mark Robert Chelmsley is the protagonist of A Week in the Woods. He is an intelligent, resourceful, and independent boy who is raised primarily by his nannies, Anya and Leon, because his parents are often away on business trips. Mark comes from a wealthy family, so on top of rarely seeing his parents, he also moves constantly. When Mark first leaves his Scarsdale home, it is clear he is sad to be moving again, as he leaves a penny under the radiator in his room as a signifier that he spent time there. Mark takes after his father, though, and puts his emotional state aside as he gets in the car and rides away in silence. When he arrives in Whitson, New Hampshire, he sees it as another temporary place and doesn’t want to risk becoming attached to it. Instead, he resolves to hang back in class and actively avoids getting to know his teachers or classmates; this decision ultimately earns him a poor reputation as he pushes many of them away. He becomes jaded, and his lack of engagement at school fuels a fire that he doesn’t even know exists—Mr. Maxwell’s biased feelings of resentment and classism toward wealthy people in general.