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The Tomcat
The protagonist of “Red Peter’s Little Lady,” Peter is a chimp who, after years of training, now believes he’s human. He walks upright, wears clothes, speaks, and writes. The story is told through his letters to Hazel, a chimp who will become Peter’s wife, and to Evelyn, the married woman he loves and who inspired him to become human. As Peter writes to Evelyn and to Hazel, he expresses a bleak view of what it means to be human. In his opinion, being human means embracing masochism and depriving oneself of pleasures. Thus, Peter doesn’t allow himself to drink caffeine, and he doesn’t eat meat. Even though Peter is supposed to marry Hazel, it soon becomes clear that he doesn’t love her. Although he lives much like a human, Peter is still an animal in his trainers Herr Hagenbeck and Herr Oberndorff’s zoo, and Peter writes about being a zoo animal without much thought for much of the story. Especially when he writes to Hazel, he glosses over the nastier or abusive aspects of being a zoo animal. However, when he learns that Herr Oberndorff is dead and Herr Hagenbeck escaped World War I to Africa, Peter admits how difficult it has been to live under the men’s thumbs. He’s thrilled to not have to marry Hazel anymore, and he begs Evelyn to restart their relationship. However, Peter struggles to survive in World War I-era Hamburg, Germany. He’s gradually stripped of his clothes, his rooms, and everything that makes him human—until he finally finds himself back in his cage in Herr Oberndorff’s library, destined to become Evelyn’s dinner.
Red Peter Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Red Peter or refer to Red Peter. 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:
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Red Peter’s Little Lady: Soul of Chimpanzee
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They—the humans, that is—seem to think that what sets them apart from other animals is their ability to love, grieve, feel guilt, think abstractly, et cetera. They are misguided. What sets them apart is their talent for masochism. Therein lies their power. To take pleasure in pain, to derive strength from deprivation, is to be human.
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I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you, before I was fully human, and from across that gulf of understanding and experience, somehow, miraculously, you felt something for me in return. You alone inspired me to become human, not your husband’s relentless mazes and sorting tasks and word repetitions, not his tantrums when I didn’t do what he wanted, not the whipping, not the sweet fruit he dangled just out of my reach. I wanted to be human so that I might reach out across that chasm and touch you, be touched by you.
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Frau Oberndorff gave me a pet cricket. The cricket lives in a walnut shell. If you hold him up and look at him directly, he looks fierce. The man who brought the cricket to the zoo said he would win battles against other crickets if we first chop up a fly and feed it to him to make him violent.
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Hundstage: Soul of Dog
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I was starving. My Master had recently begun to follow a vegetarian diet and decided that I should give up all meat too, in keeping with his beliefs [...] Not only that, he was concerned about my karma. He had promised me that if I did as he said, ate no meat, resisted my urge to hunt foxes, and tried to meditate once a day, I might be reincarnated as a human being in my next life. A human being! The thought was intoxicating.
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Red Peter Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by Red Peter or refer to Red Peter. 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:
).
Red Peter’s Little Lady: Soul of Chimpanzee
Quotes
They—the humans, that is—seem to think that what sets them apart from other animals is their ability to love, grieve, feel guilt, think abstractly, et cetera. They are misguided. What sets them apart is their talent for masochism. Therein lies their power. To take pleasure in pain, to derive strength from deprivation, is to be human.
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I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you, before I was fully human, and from across that gulf of understanding and experience, somehow, miraculously, you felt something for me in return. You alone inspired me to become human, not your husband’s relentless mazes and sorting tasks and word repetitions, not his tantrums when I didn’t do what he wanted, not the whipping, not the sweet fruit he dangled just out of my reach. I wanted to be human so that I might reach out across that chasm and touch you, be touched by you.
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Frau Oberndorff gave me a pet cricket. The cricket lives in a walnut shell. If you hold him up and look at him directly, he looks fierce. The man who brought the cricket to the zoo said he would win battles against other crickets if we first chop up a fly and feed it to him to make him violent.
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Hundstage: Soul of Dog
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I was starving. My Master had recently begun to follow a vegetarian diet and decided that I should give up all meat too, in keeping with his beliefs [...] Not only that, he was concerned about my karma. He had promised me that if I did as he said, ate no meat, resisted my urge to hunt foxes, and tried to meditate once a day, I might be reincarnated as a human being in my next life. A human being! The thought was intoxicating.
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