Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

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.

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

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.

There was once a man who was driving around in the winter, he lost control of his car and went into a ditch. He awoke to find himself alone in the car with no gas station for miles. He made the decision to start walking, he walked for 2 miles when he came up on a truck. He assumed the owner was hunting as they were in a prime hunting spot. The man peeked inside the truck to find lots of food and warm clothes. If the man broke into the truck and ate the food and put the clothes on should he could get in trouble. He was in a very dangerous life or death situation. This is the question: Should he get in trouble for trying to save his own life? If humans are in life or death situations, they should be able to do whatever is needed to keep themselves alive.

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.

Vampires are attractive and strong yet evil and selfish due to their bloodlust. Many believe that vampires greatly differ from mortal humans, but Yann Martel uses the vast differences between Richard Parker and Pi Patel to reveal how even humans can have two different sides to themselves.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a compelling, profound, and a well written book. The main character, Piscine Motor Patel is a particularly loving and caring boy, especially for animals. When Pi was younger, he “always shuddered when [he] snapped open a banana because it sounded to [him] as the breaking of an animal's neck.” (page 197). Throughout chapter 61 in Life of Pi, Pi demonstrates how humans act more as animals when put under the right circumstances.

In Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, a boy named Piscine Patel, known to many as Pi, finds himself trapped on a small lifeboat with animals after he evacuates a sinking ship. The ship was used for transporting himself, his family, and the animals from the family’s zoo to Canada. Yann Martel uses the literary devices characterization, setting and imagery to highlight the theme the will to live during Pi’s voyage in hope surviving. Piscine Patel is characterized as someone who takes good care of their body as he heads to diner.

In science, a common theme is that every action has a reaction. When baking powder is mixed with vinegar, the two react together to create something new. This is cause and effect. In cause and effect, each event has cause for why it happened, and its subsequent effects. The event was the chemicals being mixed, caused by are curiosity, leading to a new substance.

It all started when Pi wanders up to a catholic church. He enters the church and meets father Martin they sat down with tea and biscuits. Father Martin tells Pi that Jesus Christ died for human kind's sins as it wasn’t a pretty death. Pi asks several questions on "why would a god suffer?", "why would a god taint himself with death?", "why doesn't Jesus do much other than tell stories and perform some small miracles?", "why is Christ so human", the priest ended up replying with the answer 'love'. Pi can relate to the Christian belief as it falls under the suffering. Jesus Christ suffered and so did Pi. He calls out god during a storm and he calls the "god of storm" upon him. Praying to god during his journey helped him out. The suffering slowing

Beliefs are what makes a person act upon their instincts. A village of people is segregated from society. The government shuns them because their beliefs are not the norm. Although they are isolated, they refuse to comply and throw away their beliefs just to feel like they belong. Beliefs and values mold a person’s behaviour. They may choose to not participate in certain situations simply based on beliefs. Especially things that go against a person’s morals. In the book, Life of Pi, the author Yann Martel tells an astonishing story about how Pi’s beliefs run his life. They can integrate so deeply into a person’s personality, that is becomes hard to separate one from the other. Beliefs and values can come into play both when a person needs them

In Life of Pi by Yann Martel the main character is Pi Patel, a boy who gets stuck on a lifeboat with a few zoo animals after his boat sinks. The story focuses on his experience on the lifeboat and his journey to discover who he is. Pi faces many conflicts, has many varying personal beliefs, and experiences changes throughout the story. First, the most important conflicts are within his journey on the lifeboat and his experience with religion as a child.

Does Martel’s Life of Pi treatment of religion give power to God or does it give power to works of fiction? Instead of giving power to the one versus the other, Martel is not trying to get the reader to believe in God, to prove his existence, but rather there is a justification of a person’s individual right to choose in believing in God. Life of Pi doesn’t try to question religion as an institution, but rather there is a focus on the debate between fact and fiction where “Martel’s position is a postmodernist one, from the perspective of which God’s existence has the same status in relation to truth and reality as Pi’s experience of shipwreck” (Stratton 6). In Martel’s work there isn’t a focus on what is to be more believable in either fiction or religion, but rather how there are no other alternative in between the two.

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.