Foreignness and 'The Other' Quotes in Shiver

Even though Grace isn't afraid of the wolf, she still doesn't understand him. He is 'other' to her. However, the difference between Grace and the townspeople is that Grace is empathetic toward Sam, instead of afraid.

Olivia isn't exactly sympathetic to Grace's theory that Jack is a werewolf. Grace is either really confident to reveal such a foreign theory to her friend, or a little crazy.

It seems that empathy and understanding are foreign to Isabel, who just cannot see Grace's point of view and calls her retarded. Only when she has personal experience with the wolf world does she start to understand and see them more as “us” than as “them.”

We're not sure if Grace is incredulous (meaning she doesn't believe him) because telepathy is a weird foreign concept to her, or because she's jealous.

It's easier to brutally murder someone when you view them as the “other.” Um... we're not speaking from experience, we swear. But compare this line with Shelby's “we must be the worst way to die.” (36.7) The wolves can do the same thing to the humans.

This is a favorite saying of Beck, and it shows that there is a clear divide between the humans and the wolves. Each party views themselves as “us” and the others as “them.”

Sam gets to travel between both worlds--the human and the wolf--and he sees both sides as foreign to the other. Is it possible for the two to get along, if the wolves themselves think they can't?

Humans have a tendency of doing this. Remember what happened to Grendel?

The wolves want to keep their other status, in a way, because of the fear of being hunted down if they're found out.

When something is the “other,” myths spring up about it as people try to explain it, whether their explanation is true or not.