Importance of The Tiger's Pugmarks

Each print seen by the villagers bears the same telltale sign: it's missing one of the toes on its paw. The reader knows, even if the villagers don't, what this means. The beastly, deformed paw print symbolizes the distortion of humanity. Ji Lin is the one to realize this first when she notes how her choices have not helped her live up to her name, which means wisdom. She thinks that each one of the set is responsible for living up to their aptronym: "the further we strayed, the more the balance in our worlds distorted. Less human, more monstrous. Like the claw of a beast" (251).