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External Conflicts In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

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The weather was a big part of Pi’s adventure and sometimes made him feel hopeless. Pi says, “The loss of the raft was perhaps not fatal to my body, but fatal to my spirits” (Martel 228). This was after the storm that destroyed his raft to get away from Richard Parker. The weather always controlled Pi and what he did on the ocean, so he felt powerless. There is also a time where Pi mentions that in the darkness, he wanted light, and in the light, he wanted darkness. He called them grim and exhausting opposites. This shows that the weather is slowing him down, and making him losing hope of getting to land. Multiple times in the book, Pi says he is going to die, and 90 percent of the time, it's because of the weather. Pi acknowledges that the weather breaks him down inside, and that it is one of the biggest external conflicts of the book. …show more content…

Society thought that you could only follow one religion, but Pi went against the grain and practiced three different ones; Hinduism, Christianity, and muslim. When the three different religious men walked up to Pi and his family and try to get him to practice one religion, they say, “But he can’t be a Hindu, a Christian, and a Muslim. It’s impossible. He must choose”(Martel 69). But Pi responds, “Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God…”(Martel 69) Pi has a big external conflict against society about his beliefs. He really just wants to love God, but everyone just keeps wanting him to choose one religion. Pi finds it hard to believe in God when he is alone and on the boat in the middle of the ocean. He practices all of these religions, but still has trouble to have faith in God, as everything he loves is taken away and his life is in

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