Life With A Bengal Tiger In Yann Martel's 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.

In Thomas Wolfes’ story “The Child by Tiger” Dick Prosser a deeply religious veteran from the South begins working for a white family after serving in the United States Army. Prosser was well liked by the Shepperton family and the boys of the neighborhood, until the day that Dick Prosser’s  PTSD was triggered and killed many people of the town. The boys of the town looked up to Dick,  they thought that he was able to do everything. He was also considered to be very smart for an African American. Thomas Wolfe uses George L. Dillon’s styles of reading in “The Child by Tiger”. Wolfe uses two out of three of  George L. Dillons styles of reading, one of the styles is the Anthropologist style. In Thomas Wolfe’s story Anthropologist style is a way of looking at the social norms and values of the story. Dillons Anthropologist style of reading is represented in Wolfe 's story by showing the effects of PTSD and the way African Americans were viewed and treated. Wolfe uses another one of George L. Dillon 's styles of reading. Digger for Secrets is also used in “The Child by Tiger.” Digger for Secrets style is how the readers go beneath the surface of the story to uncover things that are not directly stated. George L. Dillons Digger for Secrets style can be uncovered in the way Thomas Wolfe describes Dick Prosser 's physical appearance and how deeply religious Prosser was for someone who served in the army.

He created an unknown bond with him and didn’t notice it until they departed. “Richard Parker escapes into the woods without even looking back”. This quote signifies Pi’s inner-emotions towards Richard Parker. When Pi is brought back to the modern world he notices he is not his same self. he is now a man. His mind is then fixed into a new mind-set of “survival” and “scarcity” making it an obsicle to re-adapt to civilization, limiting what he would usually do with his life as a kid to dispersing his new assets he didn’t know he ever

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

To simply be alive consists of the acts of breathing and having blood pump through the body, but to be a human being consists of much more complexity. The nature composed of a human being involves having self sovereignty on our own emotions, opinions, desires, faiths as well as having a moral subconscious. Yet, what occurs when a situation allows an individual to react in a behaviour that doesn’t follow these defining factors of human nature? In Yann Martel 's Life of Pi, he creates the conflict of a cargo ship sinking, and the only notable survivors on the life raft consists of a hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, an orangutan, and a 16-year-old Indian boy. The protagonist of the novel, Pi Patel, is faced with a personal survival conflict

“Without Richard Parker, I wouldn’t be alive today to tell you my story.” The significance of this quote is that the presence of Richard saves him from the effects of loneliness. “The lower you are, the higher your mind will soar.” This quote is important because when Pi is at his lowest point, he reaches for his only remaining sources of salvation, which is his faith and imagination. “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The element couldn’t be more simple, or the stake higher.” The quote significance is that the few that survive the ship are force to face each other in a strategic battle of wits to see who will

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

Although it is not obvious at first, the large threat of a tiger on board blends into a symbol of survival for Pi. Though Richard Parker is a large issue for Pi, he is not the only issue being faced. Issues such as lack of food, scarce drinking water, and no sense of direction also

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.

Furthermore, Pi confesses to wanting Richard Parker to live primarily for Pi’s own survival when he states, “A part of me did not want

The saying “desperate times call for desperate measures” holds truth to an extent. In the award winning novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, drastic measures are taken by characters in order to survive while stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Through his journey, main character, Pi Patel, endures many hardships and witnesses several deaths. Significantly, the death of the zebra accompanying Pi and the other animals establishes a generalization of human nature being sophisticated yet inherently vicious according to methods of survival.

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’’.

Martel (2002:19) “I know zoos are no longer in people good graces and religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both”. Through this quote the reader notice that there are aspects related between zoology and religion in Life of Pi. In the beginning of the novel we are introduced to zoology and religion. The author make it clear to the reader that Pi had majors in both subjects zoology and religion and later use that knowledge to help him do things one can say is impossible.

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