How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
[Pi to Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba:] "What you don't realize is that we are a strange and forbidding species to wild animals. We fill them with fear. They avoid as much as possible. It took centuries to still the fear in some pliable animals – domestication it's called – but most cannot get over their fear, and I doubt they ever will. When wild animals fight us, it is out of sheer desperation. They fight when they feel they have no other way out. It's a very last resort. (3.99.105)
Pi considers – not for the first time – the fear he must have inspired in Richard Parker. And the fear human beings must inspire in all animals. And why not? Human beings, in Life of Pi, certainly are "a strange and forbidding species" (3.99.105). Their derangement causes them to needlessly kill each other, kill animals in zoos, eat each other, and demand that Pi settle on a way of worshipping God. Literature itself might be one great attempt to understand our weirdness.