Life Of Pi Passage Analysis

In the book, The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi becomes a different person after he kills the flying fish. In the beginning of the passage Pi shares that he is a vegetarian, and could never hurt anything living. After Pi kills the flying fish to use for bait, he says, “I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul” (Martel 88). This portrays the morals of Pi before he kills the flying fish. He gives life a great value and is reluctant to interfere with the wellbeing of anything living. Later in the story, Pi kills another fish, this time a dorado. After catching the dorado, Pi says, “killing it was no problem” (Martel 89). The attitude Pi has towards killing a fish changes drastically the second time compared to

From the shortest to the tallest, from the smallest to the biggest, all living creatures will defend for their lives if the situation calls. Survival depends on freedom. Freedom allows the creature to make choices needed to survive. If those freedoms are taken away in any measure, the creature then becomes protective and threatened in which it will do anything to survive, this might result in a small battle or a war till death. This quote summarizes some main components from the novel Life of Pi. “Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.” (Martel) . This means that any living creature will fight for its existence no matter if it is an ant, human, or elephant. An example from the novel is how Orange Juice defended herself from the hyena. She felt the need to brawl for her safety, so she engaged a fight with the hyena and unfortunately she lost her life as a consequence.

Karanvir Dhami Ms. Yu ENG3U March 7, 2011 Symbolism in Life of Pi In Life of Pi there are many literary devices used to present the different themes in the novel. The main literary device used in Life of Pi is symbolism. Symbolism is often used to represent an object to something else, either by association or by resemblance. Most of the names of animals, objects and even humans in this novel have a symbolic meaning. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, symbolism such as pi’s name, the colour orange and the algae island, are used throughout the novel to provide Pi with protection to help him either survive or overcome his emotional pain. The mathematical pi is undefined, infinite and unable to be understood, just like Piscine Patel.

“The Real Story in Life of Pi
The difference between fiction and reality is not always evident to those who are unable or unwilling to recognize the difference.”

Once rescued, Pi’s credibility is questioned as he embellishes the accounts of his journey to the Japanese inspectors who find his story unlikely. Pi’s reasoning and rationale are based on illusions and mirages he envisioned while stranded on the lifeboat. His story demonstrates his desire to create a different story in order to avoid the harsh facts of life. Delving into deep and often complex truths, as Gladwell did in Outliers, enforces the reader to face the realities of life as they are and not live under any false illusions. Pi Patel, in Martel’s Life of Pi, differs from Gladwell in that he desires to live in a world of comforting lies. As he narrates his journey to others, Pi fabricates many aspects of the story in order to deceive himself and others surrounding

Pi’s narration also supports the theme of the importance of storytelling. As the only evidence of the story, people have no choice but to believe what he tells them, however wild it seems because while he might lack evidence, they don’t have any at all. When Pi is recalling his story to the Japanese in charge of the sinking, he tells them two stories, one with animals and one with people. One version, although it may be factually true, does nothing to reveals the emotions and masked memories that should not resurface. By creating the animals Pi blocks his mind from

On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which

Yann Martel’s theme of truth being relative is again established when Pi experiences a shipwrecked. On the lifeboat, Pi continues to survive living with a bengal tiger, he survives after seeing the other animals on the boat kill each other, and he survives by eating fish even though he is a vegetarian. Inspite of all the suffering Pi is going through he still turns towards God. This is proved when Pi says, “I practised religious rituals that I adapted to the circumstances – solitary Masses without priests or consecrated Communion Hosts, darshans without murtis, and pujas with turtle meat for prasad, acts of devotion to Allah not knowing where Mecca was and getting my Arabic wrong. They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up...The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining light in my heart. I would go on loving” (208-209). Through this quote, Yann Martel is showing how Pi continues to worship God even though he was suffering and struggling with his faith. Pi still believes that God is the most important to him inspite of what his is going through emotionally

My mind could hardly conceive it. It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire” (Martel, page 103) This quote shows how extreme Pi’s fear and surprise was as he was watching the ship sink. In this case Pi’s fear may be what saved him because instead of swimming through the shark infested water and risk drowning to save his family, he observes the shipwreck. “In less than twenty minutes, a ship of three-hundred thousand tons became a speck on the horizon” (Martel, page 236) Pi believed that with this ship came salvation, but instead it was as if he wasn’t even there.

Throughout time, humans have written books based on various genres in an effort to tell a story, whether it is fact or fiction. Storytelling is one of the most beautiful ways to express ideas, and creative thoughts, involving characters, settings, to create a plot. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, cleverly incorporates ambiguity from the omission of information, and lack of resolution. These aspects in turn, create the ambiguity, which leaves the reader to interpret the text in anyway. The ambiguity formed develops the significance of Pi’s storytelling, to the author and the readers. The post-modern aspects in Life of Pi, leave many things open to interpretation based on Pi’s storytelling ability.

The story stretches reality in terms of the events that occur, the places he goes, and in the power of his belief. However, the tale does not show what a believer would do in such situations of life, but rather it gives a value to those who do chose to believe in something. It gives value by bringing light to the power of story. This power dominates religious beliefs because followers living in a descended time period can not witness things on their own but they still have faith in them because they have the stories of it. Without the stories telling a message the religious following would have nothing to base their beliefs on. The overview of a religion does not inspire the followers, but rather the stories draw them in and give them a reason to believe. The story of Pi serves not to show a religion but to show the power that a story can hold, and because the tale gives so much value to believing and the main character's mind clusters religions, the two typically get tied together when analyzing the novel. The power of story does not need facts and numbers to prove, but rather holds half of its validity in the listeners will to believe or deny it. Those who deny it typically like to hear of realism and of things that they already know by fact. Whereas the ones who accept and begin to interpret stories for deeper meaning and insight typically open their minds to the idea of believing in something without definite

The experiences and struggle one encounters often determines their development as a person. In society, many people face obstacles which assist shaping them as a person. Internal struggles are a catalyst to change in ones’ life. Through the use of Hamlet from William Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, and Piscine Molitor Patel from Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, readers are able to perceive the impact internal hardships have on ones’ life.

Reality might not be as sacrosanct as one may have previously believed,. Martel attempts to convince his readers of this fact through the story “Life of Pi”, alongside the characters of Pi and Richard Parker who only manage to survive a perilous journey at sea through a combination of faith and wits. By using religion and logic as stand-ins for fiction and nonfiction, Martel explores the possibility that the truth may not be sacred enough to be “ruined” by a good story.

In Yann Martel’ Life of Pi, a young boy named Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi Patel is stranded on a lifeboat after a shipwreck. How can someone survive 227 days, on a lifeboat, on the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger? Pi is an Indian boy from Pondicherry who is faced with great difficulties staying alive after being separated from his family following the shipwreck. His faith and belief in God greatly helped him get out of this misery. In the following paragraphs, I will explore the themes revealed throughout the novel. Many important and interesting themes are developed in the story. I will elaborate on faith or belief in God, survival and storytelling. All three themes have worked in conjunction to bring out this beautiful story.

Life of Pi, by the author Yann Martel is a fiction novel. I picked this novel because fiction novels contain a high level of creativity. The way how fun often accompany creativity when it comes to reading is a reason as to why I chose this book.