First let me say that this story has an edge of sadness that definitely lingers with the reader. While I loved the story, it is best suited for upper levels; I would think probably 11th or 12th grade. The story takes place in Germany during WWII, and it is organized in sections that are dedicated to understanding the perspective of each of the main characters. The story is not linear, the setting changes several times during the short story and part of the story is told as a piece of folklore passed down from one generation to the next.
Summary: a lion escapes from his cage at the zoo after the area is bombed. There is much chaos and death in the aftermath of the bomb, and many people see the tiger yet don't really "see" the tiger. The tiger survives by eating dead human remains until it reaches the outskirts of a small village. Once at the village, the tiger begins to steal livestock and meat from a smokehouse. The townspeople are very superstitious, and some of them think the tiger is the devil. The grandfather of the narrator is a small boy living in the town who becomes fascinated with the tiger. The boy has a close encounter with the tiger when he sees a light burning in the smokehouse and intuitively crosses a meadow and enters the butcher's smokehouse. He sees the much younger, foreign wife of the butcher, a "deaf-mute" girl, holding a leg of lamb, and then the light goes out. The tiger passes by the boy, but doesn't harm him or the girl. A group of men form a hunting party and head for the mountains with the only gun the village owns. It doesn't go well and one of the men shoots himself by accident. When the butcher returns to town, he beats his wife because he saw the tiger chewing on a lamb leg that he assumes his wife fed to the tiger.
The butcher ends up disappearing and the young woman starts appearing in town wearing silk and furs. She looks happy and soon starts to appear pregnant. The town is awash with rumors about how she killed her husband and has a special bond with the tiger. She soon becomes known as "the tiger's wife."
Themes/Connections:
-The girl and the tiger are both outsiders trying to survive in a foreign land.
-A different perspective on a war story
-Superstition and folklore
-Interesting story to examine P.O.V.
-Reality vs. fantasy- how much of the story was a real memory? How do memories change over time?
-Innocence of childhood/ wisdom of children
-Destiny
-Secrecy
-mistrust of what is different or foreign
Not that the story line is the same, but for the topic of animals in wartime, I just bought a picture book Tim recommended entitled "The Faithful Elephants." If you were to spark a discussion of what happens to the forgotten creatures in wartime, it might be a good pairing.
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