Father's Warnings To Stay Away From Life Of Pi

The Life of Pi, an award-winning novel by Yann Martel, tells the story of Pi Patel, a young boy stranded at sea with an adult Bengal tiger. Marooned on a tiny lifeboat adrift in the Pacific Ocean, Pi finds himself struggling to survive. Faced with imminent suffering and death brought on by hunger, thirst, and an unending battle with the elements, Pi must make a decision between upholding his and society’s strict set of morals and values, or letting his survival instincts take over. Through compelling language and imagery, Martel gives Pi’s conflict between morals, fear, and survival a sense of excitement, suspense, and climax.

Jakob Montemurno English Honors Summer Homework 1. Pi Patel A. Pi is a boy born in Pondicherry, India. He is lives in a zoo which is owned by his family. He is stuck on a lifeboat with an orangutan, tiger, hyena, and zebra after a ship to Canada sinks.

In this sometimes heartbreaking, inspiring novel, Rob Horton, a glum,twelve year old boy living his sad, lonely life with his dad, was wandering through the woods one misty Florida morning when he finds the most unexpected creature, a beautiful tiger. A real life glistening tiger, locked up in a cage. On the same outstanding day he meets a fierce girl named Sistine Bailey while in school. Together, with the tiger always in their hearts;guiding them and leading them to make choices, they go through heartaches,happiness and loneliness. Also, despite their opposites,they uncover the meaning of true friendship and learn that the most important things in life, can’t stay hidden forever. In my opinion, this book teaches an important lesson. I think the lesson taught in this novel is inspiring, and is something worth-while. I think this book teaches you that you can’t focus on your past, and you can’t keep the whole world locked up forever.

The violent outbreak of Richard Parker, along with his silent departure at the end of the novel, portrays how futile it is to try to change a wild animal into a civilized being. Richard Parker seems, at first, to have experienced a spiritual breakthrough and transformation after Pi’s attempt to training. Even in the end, Pi’s ability to survive such a journey with a beastly killer seems evidence enough that Pi trained the tiger. Pi’s main goal, along with survival, is to establish a level of equality between himself

The most interesting part of the novel is it’s end which is left on the readers to decide that whether the liked the first story of tiger and a human or the second one that includes animals giving out the mix feeling of humor and grief also Pi Patel describes it as a happy ending (although the tiger left him but he got on land after 100 days on life boat moreover he accomplished his quest of finding God).

The first thing that inadvertently displays Pi as a Christ figure is his name Piscine Molitor Patel. He was named after a Parisian swimming pool that Mamaji described as being “a pool that the gods would have delighted to swim in” (Martel pg 11). The name in of itself, is a place that the gods are reborn, this show the depth of religious fervor Pi is implicated in and it foreshadows the devotion he will have in the future. In an ironic twist his name becomes a playground slur by his classmates, he comments how the harassment his name causes is his “crown of thorns”. To stop the relentless pestering he shortens his name to Pi, which in mathematical terms is a number that is irrational, infinite, and non-repeating. His classmates also soon pick

This book focuses on the survival of a man named Pi after a horrible shipwreck and many months in a lifeboat with a large Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. This book would be a good choice for me because it strikes my interests by including survival at sea with a life endangering animal.

The name Pi is also symbolic because as Pi stated: “I was named after a swimming pool” (8) The word “Piscine” in French translate to ‘swimming pool’ in English. The significance of his name is because he spends 227 days in a huge swimming pool (the ocean) fighting for his life.

The tiger that Pi refers to throughout his ordeal is could be perceived as the alter-ego of himself, “The tiger killed the hyena- and the blind Frenchman- just as he killed the cook” (311). While Pi was able to use his imagination to portray a tiger as himself, Richard Parker was never more than an extension of Pi’s imagination. Richard Parker simply symbolized Pi in the real world and could never

Though Richard Parker proves vital for survival, he also reflects Pi’s character and helps further develop it throughout the novel. When first introduced, Pi was a teenaged boy curious in many different belief systems and also vegetarian. However, his experience with this tiger aboard a lifeboat after a shipwreck leads to necessary changes in Pi’s lifestyle and these dramatic changes in way of life are characterized through the tiger itself. For example, Richard Parker instinctively tears at animals and eats them in a barbaric manner in means of survival. Though Pi is disgusted by his animal-like behavior, he later resorts to the same methods of eating, “noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down…exactly the way Richard Parker ate” for his own survival (Martel 225). As a previous vegetarian, Pi is not comfortable with the idea of killing animals to eat them but realizes “it is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing” (Martel 185). He even, later, uses human flesh from a passenger that Richard Parker killed for means of survival and food. He also kills birds by “[breaking] its neck [and] leveraging [their] heads backwards”, a harsh and violent murder (Martel 231). Pi’s ability to adapt to a more vicious yet necessary way of life reveals his inner animal

Pi Patel’s full name is Piscine Molitor Patel, we are told that Piscine’s name is derived from the French word for “swimming pool” the inspiration for the name in the form of a family friend who had fallen in love with a pool in France and told his friend–Pi’s father–it should be the name of his newborn son. This family friend, Mr. Adirubasamy, is the one who teaches Pi to swim which ties in with the theme of survival as Pi is the only one in his family who survives thanks to his swimming abilities which Mr. Adirubasamy bestowed to him. There is also some irony in the name Piscine, in that as a child he is tauntingly called Pissing and when is stranded it occurs to him he may need to drink his own urine or ‘piss’.

In addition, Pi decides to feed a “450-pound” (Martel 61) bengal tiger named Richard Parker for his own self preservation. He acknowledges, “I had to tame him. It was at that moment that I realized this necessity…More likely the worst would happen: the simple passage of time, in which his animal toughness would easily outlast my human frailty” (Martel 164). This means that Pi fears that the fierce animal strength and power of Richard Parker would eventually kill and eat him for food.

Had Pi been of the faint of heart he most likely would have not survived. The many atrocities that he faced helped bring to light his undauntable side. Tigers are up to any challenge and will not show fear. Richard Parker does not cower in a corner when frightened he roars and makes known his displeasure. When Pi starts blowing the whistle at him, Richard Parker has no idea what is going on, but still hisses and backlashes. Throughout the book Richard Parker is very calm, giving little insight to his emotions with his tough facade.The same bravery is seen in Pi, who has been thrown into a frightening situation. Pi is trapped on a boat with a life threatening beast and he decides to have a show of dominance against it. Pi exemplifies bravery in the following quote: “For two, perhaps three seconds, a terrific battle of minds for status and authority was waged between a boy and a tiger. He needed to make only the shortest of lunges to be on top of me. But I held my stare”(Martel 246-247). Pi stares down a tiger which would undeniably take a great amount of courage. Now having to be completely self-sufficient, Pi is dependant on his own being and faces all the obstacles thrown at him with his head held high. The amount of efficiency carried out by Pi and Richard Parker is very

Pi`s name started popping up in the story when Pi said that he “was named after a swimming pool”(8) by his father`s friend named Francis Adirubasamy. Francis named Pi, Piscine Molitor Patel because he said that, “no swimming pool in [his] eyes matched the glory of the Piscine Molitor” (12), so that is the reason how Pi got his name. As a result of Pi`s name being Piscine Molitor Patel. It closely sounded like Pissing Molitor Patel, which later caused him to get bullied by teachers and students. Due to getting bullied because of his name. Pi was going to decide that he was going to change it. In the end, Pi change his name from Piscine to Pi or 3.14 to help stop the bullying, and also came up with a cool new nickname for himself too.

Pi contacted with animals when he was very young. Therefore, when he was in trouble and afraid to solve the problem, his savagery will help him. “We fight to the very end. It’s not a question of courage. Its something constitutional, and inability to let go. It maybe nothing more than life-hungry stupidity. Richard Parker started growing that very instant as if he had been waiting for me to become a worthy opponent. My chest became tight with fear”( Martel p.187). Pi finally chose to face the tiger, and save himself. He did not choose to stay until the tiger eats him. Even if he knows that it’s difficult to survive, he did not give up. Pi stayed with animals when he was a child. His curiosity made him have a great interest in animals. He might learn something from the wild animals. Moreover, if animals did something very cruel and their behavior will probably leave a deep impression about those things in Pi’s mind. Therefore, Pi’s savagery leads him to have the determination to against the tiger, Richard