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. Three days into his journey on the lifeboat Pi is up to this point unaware of all of the supplies it’s stocked with. He explains that he’d never experienced a more physical hell then for the lack of water he had. Pi had been surviving out at sea without food, water, and sleep and becomes thoroughly exhausted. At this point Pi is barely surviving and he is suffering on the tarpaulin. He eventually finds the resources the lifeboat had been stocked with, but it was a good lesson for him. This lesson taught him that this was not going to be an easy ride, and he needed to fight in order to stay alive. Pi didn’t have the basic needs of a human, so he couldn’t meet his bodily needs and that was a very big obstacle he had to overcome. …show more content…
Early on in the trip Richard Parker becomes irritated because he isn’t being fed. Pi soon realizes that if he doesn’t find food for him, then it’s obvious that he will become the food. So he has to do whatever he can to find food, and make sure the tiger is fed and happy. At the beginning of the novel Pi is shown as a vegetarian, but throughout the book he is killing all kinds of animals to survive. Showing again that it doesn’t matter what you’ve been doing all your life, if the matter depends on you living or dying they’re going to do whatever it takes to stay
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
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.
While on the road to nowhere, Pi starts to acquire water from the rain and obtains food to stock up while he’s worrying about the 400 pound tiger that’s on the lifeboat while Pi is on a small raft. When Pi starts to tame Richard Parker he can finally call him a friend and now has a purpose. As a Hindu, Pi does not eat meat but that went out of the window when he catches a fish and eats it raw to stay alive. When it comes down to survival there is no preference in what to eat.
The will to live is a strong urge of survival that occurs when one’s life is threatened. The novel and film Life of Pi is about a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel who is lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean due to a shipwreck with a 450 pound Bengal Tiger. The theme that fits the novel and film the best is the will to live. The novel and film effectively prove the theme by using symbols to portray how badly Pi wants to live. Characterization also plays an important role in proving the theme as the novel and book show how Pi and his tiger have to change themselves to live. Cinematic techniques such as different types of camera angles are used as well to prove that the will to live is the essential theme in the film. In the novel, Yann Martel shows how the camera angles prove what they prove. The film and novel Life of Pi effectively capture the theme of the will to live by the effective use of symbolism, characterization, and cinematic techniques.
In the text, Life of Pi, the story portrays the elements of surviving in an extreme environment. The story portrays this by showing and explaining that Pi is in the middle of the ocean with only a tiger as his companion. Also in “The Story of Keesh”, Keesh, a boy who lived on the rim of the polar sea, lived in an extreme environment especially when he goes hunting. This is because polar bears are very dangerous to hunt alone and they usually kill their hunters. Both people, Pi and Keesh both show different ways of handling their extreme situations but they both survive the environments superbly.
“Survival can be summed up in these three words- never give up. That’s the heart of it really. Just keep trying.” In both the article, “The Lone Survivor,” and the novel, “Life of Pi,” the characters face many challenges in order to survive. The quote relates to these characters due to the fact that they never give up. In an extreme environment their perseverance and determination inspires their will to survive.
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
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
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
Everyone can pick an animal that they believe describes themselves or symbolizes themselves, but in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi he takes those characteristics to a new level. The symbolism of a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger all contribute to the characteristics of Pi and his journey through the sea, together, on a life boat.
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.
Life without meaning brings no hope. Life without hope brings no faith. If you have both it will lead you into the future. (statusmind.com) Pi had hope that allowed him to survive the journey but not all the time, he has lost it a few times when he thought he was going to be eaten by the tiger but it was his morals and his faith that keeps him going. Hope plays a big role in everyone's life. Hope is the belief of what could possibly be and Pi is not sure that he is going to make it out of the sea alive but it gets him to keep pushing when he feels like he is dying or that death is near.
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
“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water” (Frank Herbert). Pi demonstrated life on the Pacific as a test of all aspects. Life on the Pacific tested his physical endurance, he was lost for two-hundred and seventy seven days. In that time, Pi demonstrates his faith towards God, himself, and Richard Parker. Pi develops a robust bond with Richard Parker, then connecting spiritually. Survival in the novel Life of Pi is etched in the deepest parts of the story. These aspects of the novel are depicted through personal and self-reflection within himself. Pi survives because of his strength, faith and a close relationship with Richard Parker.
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.