The Fight For Survival In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

Throughout his young life, Pi has been guided by a strong set of morals and values. A strict pacifist and vegetarian, Pi never dreamed of killing an animal, especially for food. Pi states, “…When I was a child I always shuddered when I snapped open a banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of an animal’s neck” (Martel 197). However, faced with starvation at sea, Pi must decide between adhering to his morals and satisfying his ravenous hunger when a school of flying fish descends upon the lifeboat. He chooses his own survival and decides he must butcher a fish to feed himself. Martel uses vivid details and language to convey Pi’s feelings about the necessity of violence and killing a living creature for survival. Martel conveys a sense of suspense to the reader as Pi raises his hatchet several times to

Humans generally face struggles in their lifetime. Such struggles could be within themselves or with someone or something else but commonly stem from some sort of opposition in lifestyle. In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, Pi’s passion for personal survival conflicts with his moral obligations to himself internally, morphing his external character.

In the novel, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the theme of truth is seen most prominently in the last part of the book when main character, Piscine Patel is being interviewed by two Japanese men. Pi defines truth as being relative and an invention of man, when the believability of his story is questioned. He argues that even stories, such as his, can still be true to some no matter how difficult to believe they are.

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

Bengali polymath, Rabindranath Tagore, once said “you can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” In the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the protagonist, Pi, faces many challenges at sea while being accompanied by a tiger by the name of Richard Parker. This tiger, though a nuisance, proves to be essential in the role of Pi’s survival. Throughout the story, Richard Parker symbolizes survival, a reflection of Pi, and a being of God.

On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which

When writing, authors need to think of their audience and involve an element of surprise. Authors use plot twists in their writing to help them accomplish surprising the audience, allowing them to keep their audience’s interest. Not only do plot twists help keep the audience’s attention, they also make the audience question their beliefs about what they think of the story. Authors can use this tool to advance their themes. Yann Martel uses a crazy plot twist in his book, the Life of Pi, to suggest to readers that truth is relative.

Pi has been a pacifist and vegetarian his whole life but Pi eventually breaks the fish's neck and eats it. In this situation, Pi is in a near death situation of starving. Pi’s will to survive made him disband his lifelong beliefs and kill and eat the fish. also Pi exhibits the theme the will to survive when he has to kill the cook to

When I was growing up, I wanted to open up a pet store. I would constantly tell my parents, from before I began school to around 6th grade, that I would get a business license and a rented out building and sell rescued animals my whole life. It didn’t seemed to matter to me that the few pets stores that have existed around our area have come and gone, making little to no money before the owners’ dreams of opening a pet store were destroyed. If my parents had asked me where I would accumulate the money to support rescued animals and how I would manage to accomplish this goal on my own, I wouldn’t have had the answer. Maybe that’s partly because I was so young and couldn’t realistically comprehend the importance of money in this circumstance,

The artifact I made for the book Life of Pi is a fish that is supposed to represent the Ying and Yang. Ying represents the more negative, intuitive and passive side while the yang represents positivity, active and logical. Each side has symbols to represent how they are Ying or yang. The fish is used as the artifact because of how it represents Pi’s survival on the boat. On the ying side I used a boat to to symbolize isolation and loneliness. I decided to put this on the ying side because at many times of the book Pi almost felt defeated about how lonely he felt and how there was no way off the boat. The hyena is suppose to represent evil and an example of this is when the zebra is injured the hyena is metaphorically feeding of its pain."Hyenas

Every problem we face we are given a choice, face it, or run away from it. Often times we choose to face it. With facing it comes integrity, responsibility, and more importantly will and determination. In the Life Of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi is in a shipwreck and stranded at sea for 227 days. Although he is faced with many challenges and the odds are greatly against him, his strong will and determination allow him to live.

The cost of survival is different in every scenario. Sometimes the cost can be small and materialistic like money, other times it can be something more pious like an individual’s identity. Whatever the cost is, a man’s first instinct is to sacrifice it and continue their life. For Pi, survival came at the cost of his principles and family. Pi, a vegetarian, had to kill the cook, the Frenchman and eat human and fish meat during his struggle on the lifeboat.

Over time there have been several books in which a character is forced to mature at a young age. These characters usually encounter difficult or trying situations that challenge their limits and understanding of life. Due to these rough times, a motif is expressed to the reader for interpretation. Life of Pi, a novel by Yann Martel, describes the journey of Pi Patel when he is faced with an unexpected problem. Pi, through his experiences and mental struggles while alone on the raft, transforms into a young man and learns to decipher the world in which he exists.

1. The knights weren't expecting an onslaught from the bandits 2. The package of instant potatoes only required water. 3. Circus performers at the carnival managed to captivate everyone in the audience.

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.