Yann Martel's Life Of Pi: Determination And Hard Work

The Life of Pi, an award-winning novel by Yann Martel, tells the story of Pi Patel, a young boy stranded at sea with an adult Bengal tiger. Marooned on a tiny lifeboat adrift in the Pacific Ocean, Pi finds himself struggling to survive. Faced with imminent suffering and death brought on by hunger, thirst, and an unending battle with the elements, Pi must make a decision between upholding his and society’s strict set of morals and values, or letting his survival instincts take over. Through compelling language and imagery, Martel gives Pi’s conflict between morals, fear, and survival a sense of excitement, suspense, and climax.

People who take life for granted don't truly accept life and not reshape their identity, until they've tasted adversity and all the vast misfortunes and catastrophe. Yann Martel’s book “Life Of Pi”, shows how adverse situations can help shape a person’s individual identity and play a noteworthy role in one’s life by establishing one’s ability, shaping one’s values and beliefs.

All individuals must complete their journey from adolescence to adulthood. Life of Pi is an adventure novel written by Yann Martel. Life of Pi explores the development of Pi Mortel Patel from an eager and outgoing child who is dependent on his family for care in Pondicherry to a shy adult who has to be self-sufficient and rise to meet the challenges he faces. His journey through religious and human faith in God,willingness to survive and an attempt at acceptance.

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.

The Life of Pi is a story that tells of a young boy who is full of life and faith, a boy who is Christian, Hindu and Muslim. But after a shipwreck, he is abandoned on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, an orangutan, a zebra and a hyena. As the journey unfolds, Pi is faced with many threats and challenges. Pi ends up drifting alone with no direction through the Pacific Ocean with the Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. In Life of Pi, Pi's constant challenges change him from a naive boy to a troubled teenager and then slowly into a survivor.

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.

In the beginning of the story, Pi as a young boy had several battles he fought over. He spoke first of how he was bullied over his name, Piscine. He endured this torture for quite a while until Pi used his ingenuity, and showed everyone how smart he was at changing his name to just Pi, using its relevance in every major subject. Understanding a single religion clashed with his belief system, so in addition to Hindu, he studied Catholicism and Islam. Leaving India and moving to Canada was a real struggle for Pi. He had to give up his sense of belonging within his community and

Subject The Life of Pi by Yann Martel is full of conflict. Pi has to survive on a lifeboat in the middle of the pacific ocean accompanied by a full grown tiger. Pi must also keep himself poised while on the boat. He also must keep his beliefs that he followers which are Christianity, Muslum,and Hinduism.

When a person goes through a traumatic or arduous experience, it often leaves a person despondent. Following the experience, if given some time to heal, a person can see the world as a brighter place, something they wish to enrich and protect. Whether it be a dangerous beast, or a monster in your own head, as long as someone is resilient and strong, they can make it out the other side a better person. The novel by Yann Martel, Life of Pi, shows this in a beautiful, surreal way, and is truly a story about perseverance, resilience, and strength of character. Through a terrible shipwreck, Piscine Patel is left an orphan on the pacific ocean, the only other survivors being animals, two of which are predators. However, it is revealed at the end of the book, that the animals may have been humans, and due to the horrific nature of the acts committed on the lifeboat. This is due to his brain trying to

The author of life of Pi, Yann Martel says “This book was born as I was hungry.” Pi’s life is a test of faith bravery and pure luck. So far Pi’s luck has not run out. Richard Parker is satisfied with the hyena, and zebra in his stomach. Pi has found a frenchman with food and an island full of meekrats. Weeks later he is rescued from the island and is visited by two japanese men. He told them two stories. Even though the first story had Pi’s boat life animal companions, it did not obtain the feeling and innervation that ensured the second story’s superiority.

In Life of Pi, Martel is endeavoring to state in his author’s note that all fiction truly is the variation and deformation of physical existence, to evacuate its actual wildlife. Martel speaks about this story through a fictional version of himself. He wanted to write about Portugal- yet he was in India while composing this story. He chose to transform this Portugal story into a fiction, science fiction is an adjustment of reality, and he accepted there was no reason in really going to Portugal. Martel goes ahead with his trip including a failed novel about Portugal which he discards to go search for a new story to write, and an altercation with an old man named Francis Adirubasamy in a cafe in Pondicherry. Francis tells the creator that he

The major theme in Life of Pi is the will to live. This theme is front and center through most of the book. Pi and the animals in the lifeboat fight for their survival from the very beginning of being shipwrecked at sea. Through this theme, Martel shows that both humans and animals will go to extremes in order to survive, sometimes altering their very nature. Pi acknowledges this change in him, by stating, “I descended to a level of savagery I never imagined possible” (Martel 197). Pi is forced to desert his beliefs so that he can survive. He resorts to eating fish and turtles even though he is a vegetarian and he takes life in order to eat by killing the fish and turtles himself. Pi held these beliefs strong until his survival was at stake.

The novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, has many themes that are incorporated into the story. One of the main themes in the novel is survival throughout Pi’s life.

Both story and religion share the common thread of giving life purpose and meaning. I formed this critique about how story and religion intertwine after reading the novel Life of Pi written by Yann Martel. Story and religion can also make life easier to get through by helping people to escape their reality. This common thread that story and religion share is not only found in Life of Pi. I can relate the close connection between story and religion in several other works we read this semester, including John D. Caputo’s On Religion, Leanne Simpson’s Dancing On Our Turtles Back, Craig Martin’s A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion, and William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience, Chapter 2 - Circumscription of the Topic. Ultimately, when story and religion are used in conjunction with one another, the impact on the reader is much more profound than it would be if only one or the other was used.

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, published in 2002, is the allegorical novel that follows the life of the Indian teenager Piscine Molitor Patel, exploring specifically his experience of extreme struggle and fight for survival in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Through a range of literary techniques, Martel presents a set of complex themes such as religion, faith and survival making his work worthy of study and deep analysis. However, the understanding and perception of these concepts varies for each reader, as every person’s beliefs and personal context strongly influence this interpretation. Martel digs into the intricacy of human nature, exploring the existential similarities and differences between humans and animals, and conveying his strong ideology through a variety of symbols, leaving the readers with an open interpretation of the truth behind the story.