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In “Telling Fairy Tales,” the black bear is one of only two animals left in the Sarajevo zoo during the siege of the city. He’s hungry, angry, and often cruel. He lives in a pen with the brown bear and is upfront about the fact that he’s waiting for her to die so that he can eat her. The bear knows that if he were to kill and eat the black bear, people would stop risking their lives to bring him bread, and he knows he needs the bread to live. He spends much of the story talking with a witch and saying snide things about the brown bear, especially as the other bear tells her story about Karol and the bear prince. One person who visits the bears insists that the black bear has zoochosis, which causes the black bear to pace and seem agitated. The man insists that the black bear has been agitated for a long time—long before the siege began. Finally, at the end of the story, the brown bear dies and the black bear eats her. But immediately after this, the witch informs the black bear that he ate his wife. The black bear seems to die of regret and sadness in the weeks after.
The Black Bear Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by The Black Bear or refer to The Black Bear. 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:
).
Telling Fairy Tales: Soul of Bear
Quotes
“I’m waiting for her to die so I can eat her.” He chewed at the bread.
“Why wait?” asked the witch.
“People would stop risking their lives, dodging sniper bullets to bring me bread, if they thought I had no heart, eating her while she’s still half alive,” the bear said.
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It was dark in the zoo by now, darker than it had ever been before the siege started, for the city of Sarajevo no longer relied on electricity. It had become medieval, lightless, its citizens forced to fetch water from underground springs and to wash by candlelight. And the zoo was no longer a modern thoroughfare for the ogling masses. Now the few who dared visit brought sacred offerings of food. The two last remaining animals had become central to the city’s very survival, to the idea of the city’s survival.
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“But you must see what sort of position this would put us in. Smuggling two bears out of Sarajevo in a food-relief convoy—what does that say to the people left behind? Why bears, not babies? I mean, a busload of children trying to get out of the city was fired on, and we’re spending time worrying about these wild animals? We can’t allow it, I’m afraid.” He was the only one who had not brought stale bread in his pockets for the bears.
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The Black Bear Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by The Black Bear or refer to The Black Bear. 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:
).
Telling Fairy Tales: Soul of Bear
Quotes
“I’m waiting for her to die so I can eat her.” He chewed at the bread.
“Why wait?” asked the witch.
“People would stop risking their lives, dodging sniper bullets to bring me bread, if they thought I had no heart, eating her while she’s still half alive,” the bear said.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It was dark in the zoo by now, darker than it had ever been before the siege started, for the city of Sarajevo no longer relied on electricity. It had become medieval, lightless, its citizens forced to fetch water from underground springs and to wash by candlelight. And the zoo was no longer a modern thoroughfare for the ogling masses. Now the few who dared visit brought sacred offerings of food. The two last remaining animals had become central to the city’s very survival, to the idea of the city’s survival.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“But you must see what sort of position this would put us in. Smuggling two bears out of Sarajevo in a food-relief convoy—what does that say to the people left behind? Why bears, not babies? I mean, a busload of children trying to get out of the city was fired on, and we’re spending time worrying about these wild animals? We can’t allow it, I’m afraid.” He was the only one who had not brought stale bread in his pockets for the bears.
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