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Orange Juice The Orangutan In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

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Humans have diverse habits of coping with difficulties. In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, Pi, after having endured unimaginable circumstances, fabricates an alternate story to the original. However, the outcomes of both stories are the same; the Tsimtsum sinks, Pi's family dies, and Pi survives. As a way of coping with the tragedies he has endured, Pi creates a different story which expresses the characters prodigiously, all the while inhibiting his suffering and freeing him from his survival instincts. In an archetypical nature, Pi's altering of his mother in his experience hinders the agony of her deaths while honoring her memory. In the case of Pi's mother, Pi represents her using Orange Juice the Orangutan. Upon the arrival of Orange …show more content…

Although Orange Juice is an orangutan, Pi successfully represents her as a motherly figure, referring to her as the "Virgin Mary." In doing so, Pi maintains the qualities and memories he has of his mother even though he is expressing her through an animal. Rebecca Duncan explains, "Pi mourns the loss of his parents, his brother and his 'extended family--birds, beasts and reptiles' (Martel 98), a sentiment that alternates with hope that they too have survived." Pi uses the alternate story to intertwine the importance of the animals in his life while preserving the lives and memories of his family. Moreover, the animals are of lesser significance to him, and therefore reduce the severity of their deaths. Pi explains the torment of Orange Juice's death: "Dumb with pain and horror, I watched as Orange Juice thumped the hyena ineffectual and …show more content…

Thinking about fear and its power, Pi acknowledges, "He pushed me to go on living. I hated him for it, yet at the same time I was grateful. I am grateful. It's the plain truth: without Richard Parker, I wouldn't be alive today to tell you my story" (Martel 164). Not ironically, Pi is pondering fear before he makes this statement; fear itself is what brings about his human instinct to survive. This animalistic instinct, as expressed through Richard Parker, is what keeps Pi alive. When Richard Parker kills the hyena, Pi points out, "It seemed the presence of a tiger saved me from a hyena..." (Martel 136). Once again, the importance of Pi's animalistic side is prevalent; however, it leads Pi to killing the chef. Pi uses Richard Parker as a way of ascribing his guilt away from himself onto Richard Parker. To further disassociate himself from his savage side and remind himself of his humanity, Pi includes himself in the story. When the sea is calm and Richard Parker appears, Pi notes, "The weird contrast between the bright, striped, living orange of his coat and the inert white of the boat's hull was incredibly compelling. My overwrought senses screeched to a halt" (Martel 160). In this moment, Pi is able to escape all senses of survival and take in the beauty. Conclusively, moments like these remind him of his humanity. Pi's use of both himself and

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