Life Of Pi Reflection

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.

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

Pi is alone with Richard Parker on the lifeboat and they both starve and suffer with dehydration. Pi starts catching fishes for both of them. He always gives the biggest share to Richard Parker as he is the strongest. One day, he decides to eat the largest part. He wants to calm his desire for hunger. He does not want to share anything with Richard Parker. Pi starts eating like an animal. Pi tells, “It came as an unmistakable indication to me of how I had sunk the day I noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that I ate like an animal” (Martel 183). The innocent boy is now as dangerous as an animal that can do anything for the food. His yearning for food makes him selfish. It is in pi’s hand not to sacrifices his integrity, but he chooses to sacrifice because he knows that at this critical situation it is right to do. Even though Pi loses his integrity, he gains the power of being the strongest one on the

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.

During this part of the novel, Pi’s father is teaching him a lesson by letting a tiger brutally kill a goat right in front of him. He is trying to teach Pi to not go near an animal such as tigers because they are incredibly dangerous. I believe this thread represents the foreshadowing of what is to come for Pi.

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

1. The main characters in Life of Pi are Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) and Richard Parker the Bengal tiger. Pi is the protagonist he is hopeful and believes that things get better. He is very optimistic which gets him through a lot of his troubles. In the beginning of the book Pi seemed to have things the rough way and continues that way but he was very hopeful. In the beginning of his lifeboat journey he was sure things would get better but as time went by he wasn't sure anymore but he had things to remind him to keep going. I also think he became more grownup and stronger by the end of the book. Richard Parker is the tiger on the lifeboat with Pi he is there every step of the way with Pi. He helps Pi get through things. Richard Parker is very

Commentary: When the author notes a step by step way of training the tiger, the reader better understands how important zoos, animals, and animal training was in Pi’s childhood, being the son of a zoo keeper. Instead of reading a training manual (like in the movie) Pi comes up with his own theory on how to tame Richard Parker.

Being an epitome of The Hero’s Journey, Life of Pi displays the first stage, the Call to Adventure, when the Tsimtsum (ship) sinks and Pi is ultimately left with only a Bengal Tiger and his wits to survive. Due to the rich and diverse experiences he had with his family and friends, he is well prepared to take this journey.

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.

Richard Parker, the tiger, is a symbol of Pi himself. Pi directly correlates himself with Richard Parker. If Richard Parker “give[s] up” (121) then Pi is giving up. When swimming toward the life boat Richard Parker “look[s] small and helpless” (121) much like Pi actually is. Next to the tiger, zebra, and hyena Pi is small and feeble; he has no way to defend himself against the other animals. Pi egging Richard Parker on, toward the boat; “keep[ing him] swimming” (122) shows Pi’s resilience for survival; determined for Richard Parker to survive, which is actually his determination to survive. It is often mistaken in the novel as to whether Pi is speaking of himself or of Richard Parker because they could be the same being.

By sharing a lifeboat, Pi had a zoomorphic arrangement with Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. At first, Pi and Richard Parker did not coexist well, but then both had to adapt to living on a lifeboat with limited supplies and together they went through traumatizing experiences, such as the storm. By going through this experience with Richard Parker, Pi noticed a bond growing between them. Pi was first scared of Richard Parker, but then as time went on, he thought of him as a friend rather than an enemy. To some degree, Pi even loves Richard Parker and sees him as a human. Once the lifeboat reached Mexico, Richard Parker disappeared into the jungle unceremoniously, which troubled Pi. Humans often expect goodbyes when someone is leaving from their life and this shows how Pi had seen Richard Parker as almost human

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’’.

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