How Did Pi Survive

In Life of Pi, Pi is on a boat with a Tiger trailing behind on a life raft. Pi feels obligated to make sure this Tiger lives because it is the only animal left from his family’s zoo; he wants to tame the Tiger.

Pi's story of survival is one based on and very similar to two stories in the bible. The first is David and Goliath, a story of overcoming overwhelming odds. David, just like Pi ,was a young teenager at the time and managed to kill a powerfully known giant, Goliath. What are the chances? Same goes for Pi, a youth who survived 227 days with a tiger. He too overcame the odds, so much so, it was unbelievable. Even the investigators said, "In an lifeboat? Come on, Mr. Patel it's just too hard to believe!...We just don't believe there was a tiger on your lifeboat" (Martel, 163). Jonah and the whale is another biblical story that illustrates similar motives in Pi. Jonah refused to let his life "end" and get eaten by the whale. The same case with Pi, but instead of a whale, it was a tiger he refused to get eaten by. He set out a plan to tame Richard Parker until one day "...the lifeboat was resembling a zoo enclosure more and more: Richard Parker had his sheltered area for sleeping and resting, his food stash, his lookout, and now his water hole" (Mantel,101). From the beginning of the story, Pi spent a significant amount of time studying religion. One in particular was Christianity, a religion that teaches both these stories. If one overcame the odds and the other managed not to get swallowed by the whale, what were the chances he would merit to be just like them?

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.

When Pi is trapped on a lifeboat, his only company is a Bengal Tiger. It was in this circumstance that Pi understood the animal need for survival. Pi says of his transformation from a strict vegetarian into someone who expected to kill to survive, that, “I descended to a level of savagery I never imagined possible.” (218). Everyday, Pi felt like he was at a crucial point in his life, since he didn't know whether he would live to see tomorrow, especially with Richard Parker on the lifeboat. This is when Pi’s animal instincts kicked in and mirrored that of the tiger’s. The animal inside of him, and his survival instincts ended up plainly evident in his battle for survival.

Yann Martel communicates through this composition that individuals succumb to adversity constantly, however our comprehension for various circumstances makes us ready to decide our abilities as people. Pi has numerous potential gifts and capacities that he simply hasn't revealed yet and could use to survive. All through the novel Pi experiences numerous extraordinary encounters, defeats numerous deterrents and pushes his breaking points. Such as when Pi gets the fish and kills it out of the blue. He's reluctant and starts to fuss over it, yet he soon comes to understand that with the end goal for him to survive he must be equipped for executing without blame.

In this journal, I will be questioning whether Pi will survive in the ocean. First, Pi has animals to keep him company aboard the raft. Even though the animals like to fight with each other it still makes Pi feel less lonely, and therefore more willing to try and survive. This shows how Pi will survive because he is determined to. Secondly, Pi begins to learn how to gather food and water to survive. “With time and experience I became a better hunter” (Martel 173). Pi begins to eat quality amounts of fish and turtles, and feeds Richard Parker the tiger some of the fish. This shows how Pi will learn to survive and adapt to the climate around him. Lastly, Pi is realizing what he has to do to survive. Pi was a vegetarian before he became stranded, so having to eat fish is different to him.

Tigers are seen as large savage predators by most people, but not to Pi. Richard Parker, the tiger, was in fact a very fitting companion for Pi’s long adventure at sea, even with the fact that tigers are very large carnivorous predators that could easily kill and eat humans within an instant. Richard Parker was the best choice for Pi’s traveling companion due to the natural behaviors of tigers and how Pi decided to handle his situations throughout the course of the story. Socially, “tigers are territorial and usually solitary in nature… interacting briefly only for mating purposes and occasionally to share their kill… usually there is little interaction between other species ” (Tigers Behavior).

At the beginning of the novel Pi finds himself stranded on the Pacific Ocean after the ship he and his family were on sank with nothing but his beliefs, a lifeboat, a survivor’s manual, and a tiger he calls Richard Parker. Throughout the novel Pi is in a constant struggle with both his humanity and what he needs to do to survive. He learns of the cruel survival instincts within himself that he never thought possible. At the beginning of the novel Pi was nothing more than a boy who only saw the good in the world and in humanity. By the end of the novel, however, he becomes a man who has had to face things that no person should ever have to face alone even if one believes in

Pi goes through many obstacles on his journey. All the obstacles that Pi encountered, were because he has faith in God and in himself. Pi´s faith in God helped him at the time he was stuck on the lifeboat with Richard Parker and all the other zoo animals. The faith that Pi has in God developed the faith he has in himself.

“Survival is triumph enough” (Harry Crews) In the excerpt “Life of Pi” Pi had to survive in the sea with a Keesh and Pi had to undergo extreme conditions and had to survive in life threatening situations.

His second novel was published in 2001. Life of Pi won him a Man Booker Prize and became an international best-selling title. In the novel, the protagonist, Piscine, is characterized as an excitable child, dependent on his family for guidance and protection. The sinking of the Tsimtsum acts as a catalyst for his emotional growth.

“So the Taiwanese sailor is the Zebra, his mother is the orangutang, the cook is… the hyena- which means he’s the tiger” (Martel 311). In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the potential metaphorical significance of Pi’s journey is that he transforms from the scared goat into the ferocious and fearless tiger. In the start of the novel, Pi is scared and tries to flee from danger. As the novel progresses he loses his fear.

At a point in the novel Pi’s father shows him and Ravi how dangerous all the zoo animals can really be. He says about the tigers: “Tigers are very dangerous. I want you to understand that you are never—under any circumstances—to touch a tiger, to pet a tiger, to put your hands through the bars of a cage, even to get close to a cage. Is that clear?” (Martel, 37) Now that his father’s fear of animals has been passed on to him, this could put Pi in a dangerous situation when stranded on the ocean with one. The story shapes and changes as Pi has to make a difficult choice when being near the tiger; listen to his father’s advice, or fight for his life? These events tie back to the main theme, willing to survive, by testing Pi’s faith to his father’s words, and whether he’ll be able to survive in a boat of wild

In the introduction of the novel the author lectures readers about two and three toed sloths. Pi describes the sloths as a ¨beautiful example of the miracle of life.¨ why? Pi was enticed by the sloths nature and ability to survive despite its incoherent and lazy personality. Pi even thought that the sloths represented, ¨ upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings.¨ Later in the story we find that Pi has been in a shipwreck on his way to Canada, where his survival is essential. As we know Pi was accompanied by a tiger named Richard Parker, inherited from a hunter who produced a clerical error while fowling. Pi´s urgency to survive became part of his essence because for two hundred and twenty seven days, that was his life. He woke up everyday for two hundred and twenty seven days with the intention and determination to survive. Survival was his

Furthermore, his vast knowledge of animals, having grown up at a zoo, helps him to tame Richard Parker. Pi knows tigers’ psychological thinking and exploits this by classically conditioning Richard Parker. Likewise, Pi’s experience of watching a tiger kill a goat in his early childhood taught him the fundamental lesson that ‘an animal is an animal’, enabling him to strategically and mentally survive his long and testing time at sea. In addition to that, during the early parts of Part 2, Pi comes across a survival manual, a crucial object for his continued existence. The book gives him critical information on the do’s and don’ts of survival at sea and it is hard to imagine that Pi could have survived without this book which also gave him the opportunity to write down his words which were “all he has left’’.