Community Quotes in The Host

Wanda's species, they all get along perfectly with one another. The human race? Not so much. Melanie has to be fearful when she encounters Jared for the first time. Even though she's human, and there aren't many of them left, she still has to be wary.

The souls take on a lot of traits from their hosts. With humans, it's the need to socialize. On other planets, we get the feeling that Wanda and her kind lived a mostly solitary existence. But on Earth, they're having to actually interact with one another or face betrayal by their own bodies. Humans have a biological need to live in communities, and the aliens have to obey it.

Wanderer's species exists in perfect harmony. It's sickeningly sweet. Only when they end up in the bodies of lying, cheating humans do they start to learn the meanings of these words and feel the fissures developing in their community. (Guess they got more than they bargained for with us.)

Life on Wanderer's home planet must be like one giant Cheers bar, where everybody knows your name. We have to wonder if there are any shy or introverted members of her species, because if so, they might not like everyone being all up in their business.

The souls tread that fine line between idyllic and creepy, but why is it creepy? Murder and discord are so normal to us their absence makes things seem downright strange.

Just as the Comforter tells Wanda, the human species needs community. Jeb thrives on it, too, but he doesn't seem to realize how much his human community mimics the community of the souls. Both are working together in harmony, operating without money, and sharing everything. The humans just fight a little more than the souls do. Plus, Jeb gets to be the dictator.

These small interactions help initiate Wanda into human lifestyle (maybe by regressing to her pre-teen years). They start treating her as they would a friend, not as an alien inhabiting a human's body.

Wanda feels like part of the community when Walter stands up for her. Not for Melanie, her human host, but for her, no matter what species she is.

Notice that there's no class system in the cave-dwelling human community. Well, there's Jeb, then there's everyone else.

Wanda's grand hope is that the souls and the humans will be able to live together. What would that society look like? Could the two species ever trust each other enough to live as neighbors?