Being stranded in the middle of the Pacific with only the company of a full grown Bengal tiger will take its toll on a person. In the book Life of Pi animals are a place of comfort and familiarity to Pi, the son of a zookeeper, who spends his whole life surrounded by them. While stranded in the middle of the ocean, he believes various animals from his family’s zoo are with him on the lifeboat, and the question of if that is true is to be interpreted by the reader. The animal story is not the truth, but it is Pi’s own bearable fiction, it presents the story in a way the reader can respond to and begs the question of which story they believe and which story they want to believe. His story of the animals is a different interpretation of reality, by turning his story into fiction, it becomes much easier to stomach the idea of what happened. While in the aftershock of the boat sinking, Pi asks, “what of my extended family-birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed” (Martel 98). This is the reality, no matter which story the reader chooses to believe, Pi lost everything he loves in his life when the boat sank. Fiction is his coping mechanism, turning his story into fiction distracts from the fact that he lost everything. Pi watches the death of Orange Juice in horror, “Dumb with pain and horror, I watched as Orange Juice thumped the hyena ineffectually and pulled at its hair while her throat was being squeezed by its
When Pi gets stranded on the boat with the animals, this quakes his perfect reality from events going as planned to what he should do in order to stay alive.” He then had to accept the death of his parents and also his brother. pi being so haunted by the thoughts of Mortality, brought him to create mental blocks in order to eat raw meats and raw fish. The biggest obsticle he had to face was learning how to tame a Bengal tiger with no experience. “ I had to tame him. It was at that very moment i realized this necessity.” This quote conveys pi’s logical thoughts to his survival thoughts. This quote also gives pi the
I personally feel that Yann Martel’s intent was to establish a theme around mental boundaries. The two different forms of Pi’s story when he was stuck out in the middle of the ocean differ drastically. In one story there is the plot where Pi is stuck on a lifeboat with wild animals, and then in another story the boat is full of real people. The assumption is that Pi only substituted all the people with animals to create a more fictional version of the harsh reality that his family either died or was killed on that lifeboat. Keep this is mind when you consider the plot especially in parts two and three of the novel.
Karanvir Dhami Ms. Yu ENG3U March 7, 2011 Symbolism in Life of Pi In Life of Pi there are many literary devices used to present the different themes in the novel. The main literary device used in Life of Pi is symbolism. Symbolism is often used to represent an object to something else, either by association or by resemblance. Most of the names of animals, objects and even humans in this novel have a symbolic meaning. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, symbolism such as pi’s name, the colour orange and the algae island, are used throughout the novel to provide Pi with protection to help him either survive or overcome his emotional pain. The mathematical pi is undefined, infinite and unable to be understood, just like Piscine Patel.
Once Pi has finished telling both of his stories, he asks which one the men prefer to believe, since neither of them make a difference (317). They both reply that the story with the animals makes for a much more interesting story (317) and then reference that story in their official report (319). Each person decides what they believe and that decides what becomes truth to them. To every individual what is true can be completely different based on their thoughts and
Pi’s life before the boat crashing was full of hope and wonder. His presence was ethereal, making a purpose out of everything around him. His family ran a zoo, which gave him a tight-knit relationship with animals. Pi loved to try new things. He met new people which led to his exploration
To begin with, storytelling is used to enhance both tell tales and make them more palatable to the audience. It is used as a coping mechanism for the characters in the novels, which gives them perspective of their struggles. In Life of Pi, the animals are replaced by human beings in the form of an orangutan, zebra, and hyena; each individually representing Pi Patel’s
Its importance is far more than just trying to survive. This part of the book doesn’t make it better than the film because it is not shown in the movie but more because the detailed process of killing and eating the turtle provides the reader with an example of Pi’s desperation to survive.
Pi’s narration also supports the theme of the importance of storytelling. As the only evidence of the story, people have no choice but to believe what he tells them, however wild it seems because while he might lack evidence, they don’t have any at all. When Pi is recalling his story to the Japanese in charge of the sinking, he tells them two stories, one with animals and one with people. One version, although it may be factually true, does nothing to reveals the emotions and masked memories that should not resurface. By creating the animals Pi blocks his mind from
I found the human version to be particularly interesting because when Pi described each of the animals in his narrative, he anthropomorphized them. For example, Pi talked of Orange Juice as if she were a human, commenting on the appearance of shock her eyes and the way she sat, also her compassion maternal instincts. Originally, we might have thought that Pi’s zoo-oriented upbringing was the cause of his human-like descriptions, but the alternate story raises the notion that perhaps these animals were never really animals in the first place.
After being rescued Pi’s tells his and Richard Parker’s amazing survival story, but no one believes it. Pi then begins to tell a different version of events without animals. While similar to the original story the survival of a young boy lost at sea the new story depicts
He starts out with a zebra, hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger, but the animals slowly diminish leaving only Pi and Richard Parker. Pi works to tame and care for Richard Parker, and the two survive for two hundred twenty-seven days. Pi encounters a fellow French castaway who is eaten by Richard Parker (Martel 311-320). Pi also comes across a man-eating island (Martel 322-358). The events that take place are fairly far-fetched, and the probability of all of them occurring to the same person in the period of time given is even less believable. The second story, on the other hand, is a perhaps more believable retelling of the original story. Pi relates the second tale upon the request of his interviewers for “‘a story without animals’” (Martel 381). In this story the animals are replaced with human representatives including an injured Chinese sailor, a French cook, Pi’s mother, and Pi himself. The second story, like the first, begins with many passengers on the boat, but in the end it leaves only Pi to survive by himself after brutally murdering and eating the cook who killed both the sailor and Pi’s own mother (Martel 381-391). Unlike Pi’s first story, this account is dark, desperate, and harshly realistic, without any sense of hope to counter it all. After relating both of these stories to his interviewers, Pi asks them which story they think is better (Martel 398). Although the
Your close reading of Life of Pi was well done. I agree with the major theme of Life of Pi being the will to survive. This passage also stood out to me as a reader, the comparison of life being an endgame of chess. I think that this is a good comparison to what Pi experience on the life boat. The contradiction of the first sentence forces the reader to think deep about what Pi is going through. I personally could not imagine being on a life boat for 227 days and adapting as well as Pi did. Like I said in my close reading, Charles Darwin's origin of species explains that it is the not the strongest that survives but the species that can efficiently adapt to new circumstances. I agree that Yann Martel's use of diction gives more meaning to the
Surviving in such an extreme environment is not easy to survive. In these types of situations, the survivor needs to show a lot of bravery. In the “Story of Keesh”, written by Jack London, there is a thirteen-year-old boy who lived with his mother in the Arctic. After his father had died, Keesh and his mother use to get a little of meat while Keesh father was one of the best hunters. Keesh spoke out for his rights, everyone at the council used to make fun of Keesh while he didn’t really care. Keesh decided to go hunting and get the meat for himself and rest of the village members. In the story, Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, Pi is orphaned in the middle of the Pacific ocean on a lifeboat. Pi’s father died in a shipwreck. Pi is with a tiger and other animals on the lifeboat. Pi hasn’t eaten or drink anything for hours. He was on a hunt for water. After some time, he finds water and good to go. Yann Martel which is the author of Life of Pi and Jack London which is the author of “Story of Keesh” shows a lot of strategies including characteristics, conflicts, and figurative language etc, to show the theme 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’’.
The novel “Life of Pi” illustrates the life of a character named Pi during his 227 days lost at sea. There is a strong connection between the author Yann Martel and the characters and setting in the story “Life of Pi.” Martel’s time spent in India was the major influence for this book as many of the characters and story are influenced by his experiences in India. The animals in the book, which play a major part in the story, are influenced primarily from Martel’s visit to the Trivandrum Zoo, which contains all the animals in the story except the orangutan. Religion also plays a major role in the story, which is influenced from Martel’s visit to India as he learned about the religious culture of India. Although Martel did not directly experience the events that occurred in “Life of Pi,” his time spent in India helped to influence his work.