A Lion's Territory

I'm currently reading a book entitled, "Life of Pi."

I'm really enjoying it. The author is a phenomenal writer. I love his writing style.

This section, for some reason, totally had me enthralled:

"So you see, if you fall into a lion's pit, the reason the lion will tear you to pieces is not because it's hungry - be assured, zoo animals are amply fed - or because it's bloodthirsty, but because you've invaded its territory.

As an aside, that is why a circus trainer must always enter the lion ring first, and in full sight of the lions. In doing so, he establishes that the ring is his territory, not theirs, a notion that he reinforces by shouting, by stomping about, by snapping his whip. The lions are impressed. Their disadvantage weighs heavily on them. Notice how they come in: mighty predators though they are, "kings of beasts," they crawl in with their tails low and they keep to the edges of the ring, which is always round so that they have nowhere to hide. They are in the presence of a strongly dominant male, a super-alpha male, and the must submit to his dominance rituals. So they open their jaws wide, they sit up, they jump through paper-covered hoops, they crawl through tubes, they walk backwards, they roll over."