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The Color Orange In The Novel 'Life Of Pi'

Decent Essays

3. The colour orange appears many times in the novel "Life of Pi", as do the colours red and yellow, which together create orange. The colour red as an archetype symbolizes great passion, blood and sacrifice. The colour yellow symbolizes hope and happiness. Orange is a combination of these two archetypes. On page 153 in "Life of Pi", Pi remarks, "It seems orange---such a nice Hindu colour---is the colour of survival." Survival could be viewed as passion, sacrifice and hope all combined together.
The colour orange, or the combination of red and yellow, holds great significance in Pi's view as it represents survival and his inability to give up his battle for life. In chapter 53, Pi mentions that he is one of those individuals who never gives up, "We fight and fight and fight." In Pi's view, orange also represents religion and hope, as he mentions orange is the colour of Hinduism.
Pi additionally specifies numerous physical things that are orange. He recognizes that specific survival things are orange; "The whole inside of the boat and the tarpaulin and the life jackets and the lifebuoy and the oars and most every other significant object aboard was orange. Even the plastic, beadless whistles were orange." (153) On page 137, Pi discusses a truly splendid Pacific sunset that was a "placid explosion of orange and red".
The animals on board that Pi perceives as imperative are additionally orange. Orange Juice, the matronly orangutan, floated to the lifeboat on a raft of bananas.

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