The bear prince is a character in the story-within-a-story in “Telling Fairy Tales.” He begins life as a human prince but turns into a bear sometime around his first birthday—the price’s mother had paid a witch to make a king fall in love with her. The Polish man Karol adopts the bear prince when he finds the cub sleeping in the woods, and the two soon become very close. The bear prince eventually becomes a mascot for Karol’s regiment during World War II. He grows into a gentle giant and his presence gives the men something to fight for. In order to keep the bear prince with Karol, the army eventually makes him a corporal so he can accompany the regiment to Italy. Especially in the face of of all the carnage that Karol and the regiment see in Italy, the bear prince reminds the soldiers that there’s something worth living for. Throughout the story, the bear prince struggles with the idea of love—he knows he’s a human inside a bear’s body, and he fears that nobody will truly be able to love him because he’s not fully human or animal. After the war, the bear prince lives out the rest of his days in the Edinburgh zoo in Scotland. The character is based off of Wojtak, a brown bear that accompanied a regiment of Polish Soldiers through the Middle East and to Italy during World War II.
The Bear Prince Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by The Bear Prince or refer to The Bear Prince. 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:
).
A Letter to Sylvia Plath: Soul of Dolphin
Quotes
Perhaps you should be asking yourselves different questions. Why do you sometimes treat other people as humans and sometimes as animals? And why do you sometimes treat creatures as animals and sometimes as humans?
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Explanation and Analysis:
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The Bear Prince Quotes in Only the Animals
The Only the Animals quotes below are all either spoken by The Bear Prince or refer to The Bear Prince. 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:
).
A Letter to Sylvia Plath: Soul of Dolphin
Quotes
Perhaps you should be asking yourselves different questions. Why do you sometimes treat other people as humans and sometimes as animals? And why do you sometimes treat creatures as animals and sometimes as humans?
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
