Keeping a wild creature’s body and keeping its love are mutually exclusive

Evidence

His grandmother said gently, ‘You saved its life, and it loves you. But a wolf is not a dog. You can keep its body by the fire, or you can keep its love by letting it go — but you cannot keep both.’ It was the hardest thing Bataar had ever done. One dawn he walked the wolf far out toward the hills, knelt, and unfastened the cord. ‘Go,’ he whispered. The wolf looked back at him a long moment — then turned and ran toward the howling, free. — , A Year of World Stories, 11832

Categorization

• DEFINE: The distinction between a wolf and a dog encapsulates the boundary between wild and domestic.
• XREF: connects to: Great love is tragic because it opposes species-purpose — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 917; The imaginary passion stays alive precisely by avoiding real contact with its object — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1613