Life Of Pi By Yann Martel

Have you ever been in a life or death situation? If you have; then you know two sides of you come out. The positive and negative or the happy and evil. In the story Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, Pi ends up stranded in the ocean for 227 days with a tiger. He makes decisions throughout his journey on the lifeboat that affect his survival. Pi, lives with his evil side and during the journey his evil side shows through as much as his good side. When people strive for survival in life or death circumstances, they must compromise their values and come to terms with their inner evil.

There was once a man who was driving around in the winter, he lost control of his car and went into a ditch. He awoke to find himself alone in the car with no gas station for miles. He made the decision to start walking, he walked for 2 miles when he came up on a truck. He assumed the owner was hunting as they were in a prime hunting spot. The man peeked inside the truck to find lots of food and warm clothes. If the man broke into the truck and ate the food and put the clothes on should he could get in trouble. He was in a very dangerous life or death situation. This is the question: Should he get in trouble for trying to save his own life? If humans are in life or death situations, they should be able to do whatever is needed to keep themselves alive.

"You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it." In the fiction novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Survival is a major topic. Personally, I feel this is one of the biggest themes of the book. It is easily identifiable based on the various settings, characters and events.

It is helpful when someone has an object, person or belief that provides them with a source of joy and comfort when times are tough. For some people, this may be a photograph, for others, a dog, and for many more, God. However, if someone relies on only this specific item for their happiness and hope, there can be consequences. What if they discover a disturbing fact about the item? What if the item gets lost? In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, a deeply religious sixteen year old named Pi becomes lost in the Pacific. His health dwindles as he struggles through the ordeal, until he miraculously stumbles upon a floating algae island. Unusual characteristics of the island, both lifesaving and dangerous, mirror Pi’s religious beliefs. In the novel,

Religion, Tiger, Boat: these three distinct words merge together to create a tale of survival, struggle, heartbreak, and mystery. Yann Martel sets the stage of “Life of Pi” by introducing his readers to Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi, who has a passion for religion and animals. He studies and worships the beliefs of a Hindu, a Muslim, and a Christian which proves to be a feat in itself. Martel uses symbolism and imagery to connect Pi’s experience in the Pacific to his life as a whole. Throughout Pi’s adventure of self-discovery, he struggles in keeping faith his ultimate priority.

In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, our main character is faced with a devastating situation where he struggles with faith and what it feels like to lose part of yourself to our instinctual nature. This story holds many metaphorical meanings about faith and what it means to be human. At the end when it is revealed that there is an alternate story to what happened we can see that they both represent two ways of life. In the original we are introduced to an island that represents Pi’s struggle with his face. We are also given two sets of characters; some human and other animals. With this we can compare how they each reflect each other.

In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi the protagonist, Pi Patel, is trapped on a lifeboat with a cook, a sailor, and his mother. While on the lifeboat, horrific events occur, and in order to lessen the trauma, have motivation to survive, and detach himself from his violent side, Pi creates a delusion. To begin with, he creates a delusion to lessen the trauma of the cook's murder and cannibalism of the sailor and Pi's mother. He replaces the humans with a hyena, zebra, and an orangutan as part of his delusion. Since Pi had been raised in a zoo, he has considerable knowledge of animals.

In science, a common theme is that every action has a reaction. When baking powder is mixed with vinegar, the two react together to create something new. This is cause and effect. In cause and effect, each event has cause for why it happened, and its subsequent effects. The event was the chemicals being mixed, caused by are curiosity, leading to a new substance.

Calamity can make an individual question the meaning of life and its continuity. Roles of prey and predator are interchangeable in dreadful circumstances; when survival instincts come through. During an accident, our priorities might shift from saving our loved ones to saving ourselves. We might be forced to surrender our values, philosophies and cultural ideologies in situations where the probability of mortality is high. In Life of Pi, Yann Martel portrays the protagonist, Piscine Molitor Patel, Pi as a person whose belief in god drives him to humanize the dark struggles he faces during his time on the boat.

Pi being able to normalize animal killing for his own survival eventually helps him come to fully understand and appreciate the sanctity of a living being. Having known what it is like to feel the life escaping another sentient being gave him a deeper perspective on the deeply seeded Hindu tradition that any form of sentient life is sacred and must be respected as such. The first time Pi felt this phenomenon was an extremely emotional time for him. Although he was doing what he needed to do purely for the sake of survival, Pi felt like a murderer as he snapped the fish in half. Through the present-day form that the story is told in, it is revealed that Pi “never forget[s] to include this fish in his prayers” (183). Pi’s deeply seeded vegetarianism, rooted in his faith, has only been strengthened during his voyage, and Pi notes that he reverted to vegetarianism after returning to regular life. Rather than accepting the diet that he had adapted to on the lifeboat, his religious quest further grew his respect for sentient life. Instead of making this choice solely by principle, he made it based on his experience on the lifeboat. The killing of animals during his voyage strengthened his belief in the blessedness of all sentient life, and further evolved his vegetarian

Life of Pi is an incredible survival story written by Yann Martel. It follows a young protagonist named Piscine Patel, Pi, and his journey of hope and courage. His strength is grounded in his faith and religion, as well as his admiration for the startling world of science, and teaches that both science and religion can offer a unique perspective on the world around us. Pi has the simple yet extraordinary notion that even scientists can take a “leap of faith” (1), which enables them to be viewed in the religious community as “brothers” (4), rather than viewed as enemies of faith. The agnostics, however, are unable to conform to this way of society and are left in an indefinable moratorium. Life of Pi offers the unique perspective that science and religion can be balanced and gives one a greater appreciation of life. This idea is exemplified by Pi’s struggle for survival that ultimately is achieved through his concrete faith in religion and foundation in science.

In the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, begins with introducing us to an average kid named Pi. Pi’s life completely changes when their family decides to move to Canada and Pi faces the hardest obstacles he’ll ever have to endure. He’s thrown onto a lifeboat with a tiger, a hyena, Orangutan, and a zebra. He risks his life in a severe storm and he’s forced to give up everything in order to survive. Throughout the novel it suggests that one will overcome any obstacle in order to survive.

Whether an individual chooses to believe in religion or not has a substantial influence on the way they ultimately live their life. Those who believe in a religion and God have a guideline to help them through life providing them with a code to live by. Whereas those who choose not to believe in religion may find themselves lost. Through his novel Life of Pi, Yann Martel presents this idea that religion acts as a guide for one’s life. One can easily see how religion brought meaning, direction and purpose to the main character, Piscine Molitor Patel’s or Pi’s life. Yann Martel also uses the zoo as a metaphor for religion which brings peace and tranquility to the lives of animals within the zoo. Following a tragic event, which acts as a means of transformation, Martel uses these same characters to show how those with faith must adapt to situations where their beliefs are not easily applicable. Pi’s religious morals and rituals become extremely difficult to apply during his trying situation, forcing him to become versatile in his practices. The zoo animals also become dependent on their own form of religion which causes them to act in very unnatural ways when it is absent. This tragic situation eventually leads to the transformation of their mindsets, causing Pi to analyse his life and assume ultimate responsibility for his actions, thus making his existentialist journey of one that provides a reformed meaning, purpose and direction in his life.

How does one go about surviving two hundred twenty seven days in a lifeboat with an adult Bengal tiger? According to Yann Martel it is through faith and science.Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a novel about an Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel and his attempt to survive after being shipwrecked. The story begins with Pi’s childhood, and delves into some important people he meets, as well as some of his life experiences. When Pi is 16, his father, a struggling zookeeper, decides to make a drastic change in order to improve his family’s future by deciding to sell his animals to a zoo in America and then continue on to Canada with his family to start a new life. The family and animals board a Japanese boat named the Tsimtsum but on the way, the ship sinks, causing his mom, dad, brother and most of the animals to drown in the ocean. Pi is tossed overboard the Tsimtsum onto a lifeboat and helps save a tiger named Richard Parker, who becomes his companion and best friend. Throughout their journey, they help each other to survive. After many days of sailing, they reach an island and Pi is filled with joy and relief, hoping they have found a home, but sadly it is a carnivorous island filled with acidic algae and it is unlivable. He and Richard Parker return to the lifeboat and next find themselves in Mexico. Some strangers find Pi and take him to a hospital where he is treated for wounds acquired during his trip. Pi is found by the Oika shipping company, who was responsible for

An animal’s instinct to survive has been honed over millions of years to ensure the livelihood of their species. Humans also bear this instinct for survival. The evolution of humans created a focus on mental prowess, rather than brute force for survival. However, humans are put into unknown situations, the mind is rendered incapable and primal survival instincts take over. The unbelievable story, Life Of Pi, revolves around the voyage of Piscine Molitor Patel. Stranded on a lifeboat with limited supplies and a diverse group of zoo animals, Pi must survive the life as a castaway at sea. The author, Yann Martel, suggests that the desire to survive is more powerful than any set of beliefs, morals, or rationality, as shown through the loss