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Karol
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:
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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:
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The Bear Prince Character Timeline in Only the Animals
The timeline below shows where the character The Bear Prince appears in Only the Animals. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Telling Fairy Tales: Soul of Bear (Died 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina)
The brown bear launches into a story about a prince, a human baby, who was turned into a bear. The black bear groans, saying “Here...
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The bear prince fell asleep. Unbeknownst to him, a young Polish man named Karol was walking with a...
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That night, Karol nestled the bear prince into a washing bowl. The other men laughed at first, but soon they all wanted...
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In Palestine, Karol found the transition to his new regiment easier because of the bear prince’s presence. The regiment adopted the cub as their mascot. He spent his days sitting outside...
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...to continue her story. She says that when Karol’s regiment moved to Iraq, the bear prince was no longer a cub. The bear’s “animal presence” elevated everyone, and those in charge...
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...but the extreme heat made everyone more laidback about the rules. One afternoon, the bear prince entered the co-ed mess tent with women’s underwear and bras on his head. He’d stolen...
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...camps to say goodbye to their sweethearts. Karol sat in his tent with the bear prince. He wanted to say goodbye to a woman named Irena, but he also missed his...
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...he had a wife; Irena said she had a husband. They then kicked the bear prince out of the tent. Feeling abandoned, the bear prince began to run away, but the...
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The witch fidgets and asks the brown bear to finish her story about the bear prince since there’s nothing else to do. Winking at the black bear, the witch remarks, “And...
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...office, an officer called, “Corporal?” Karol answered, but the officer was talking to the bear prince. The bear had been given a travel warrant to stay with Karol’s regiment.
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...the ruins of the Cassino monastery, Karol felt like he shouldn’t have brought the bear prince along—men were dying in agony everywhere. But Karol was also thankful for the bear’s presence...
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...won the battle. Karol grieved anyway, since so many people died. He sketched the bear prince with an artillery shell and his superiors turned it into a badge. They said the...
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...only to be sent to death camps or fatal gold mines. Karol and the bear prince were sent to Scotland instead. And it was impossible to get information about Poland, since...
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After getting this news, Karol stopped caring about the bear prince. The other Poles in Scotland told stories about the bear and sent him to Karol...
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When it was time to go, Karol put his hands in the bear prince’s paws. The bear sadly licked Karol’s cheek, knowing he’d never see Karol again—even though they’d...
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