Life of Pi An allegory is a story that represents abstract ideas or moral qualities. An allegory has both a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. In The Life of Pi by Ayanna Martel, Pi tells the imaginary author and the Japanese representatives a literal story of a boy who survives 227 days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. When the investigators insist on a story without “invention”, just facts, Pi tells a different story without animals. At the end of the book, the reader may conclude that each animal in the lifeboat symbolized a real person. First of all, Orange Juice the orangutan symbolizes Pi’s mother. One similarity is when Orange Juice floats to the lifeboat on bananas, Pi recalls her past and family. “She had given …show more content…
Next, when the cook attacks the sailor, Pi narrates the scene. “The sailor writhed and screamed. Then worked the knife quickly. The leg fell off...we thought he would lie calmly. He didn't. He sat up instantly, his screams were all the worse for being unintelligible. He screamed and we stared, transfixed. There was blood everywhere” (305). Both the sailor and the zebra get their leg cut off by the hyena/cook. Pi also describes both stories having a lot of blood. The sailor and the zebra also both freak out when their leg falls off. To continue, Pi notices the beauty of the zebra, and it fascinates him. “ It was a lovely animal. Its wet markings glowed brightly white and intensely black… The queer clean artistic boldness of its design and the fitness of its head struck me” (109). Pi says the zebra and the Chinese sailor are beautiful. Pi describes the zebra’s markings as being, ‘brightly white and intensely black.” Pi sees such beauty in the sailor and the zebra, and he points out the similarities in both. Finally, Pi realizes the Chinese sailor’s beauty, and explains it. “He was beautiful. He had no facial hair at all and a clear shining complexion. His feature - the broad face, the flattened nose, the narrow pleated eyes - looked so elegant. I thought he looked like a Chinese emperor” (304). Pi thinks that both the sailor and the zebra are sleek and perfect. Both are very beautiful. Pi uses the adjectives, lovely, beautiful, elegant, boldness, and brightly to describe both the sailor and the zebra. Their beauty fills him with awe. The zebra symbolizes the sailor because they both die similar deaths and Pi remarks that they're both very
In Martel’s Life of Pi, the color orange initially appears just before the scene in which the ship Tsimstum sinks into the Pacific Ocean. The narrator visits Pi and his family at their home in Canada and sees his daughter Usha holding an orange cat. This moment provides the re...
Martel introduces multiple implicit symbols throughout his novel that, though are able to be interpreted in multiple ways depending on one’s perspective, highlight the importance of religion. When confronted with the ferocity of tiger aboard his lifeboat, Pi must flee to his raft handcrafted with remnants of life jackets and oars gathered from the boat. This raft may be symbolically interpreted as a representation of his faith throughout his journey. After a dauntless attempt at training Richard Parker in order to “carve out” his territory, Pi is knocked off the lifeboat into shark infested waters with a great blow: “I swam for the raft in frantic strokes... I reached the raft, let out all the rope and sat with my arms wrapped around my knees and my head down, trying to put out the fire of fear that was blazing within me. I stayed on the raft for the rest of the day and the whole night” (Martel 228). Like the raft, Pi’s faith, constructed of portions of three separate religions, trails diligently behind his survival needs and instincts –symbolized by Richard Parker and the...
The "Allegory" - "The 'Allegory'" The Encyclopdia Britannica. N.p., a.k.a.
An allegory is a story that has hidden meaning buried in it, usually a moral, political, or religious meaning. The book Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, and the short story “The Myth of the Cave” by Plato, are both considered to be allegories. In fact, they are very similar allegories because their hidden meanings are alike. In “The Myth of the Cave,” the people are sitting in a deep, dark cave with nothing to live for. Similarly, in “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” the flock is wrapped up in the idea that all they have to do in life is find food and eat it. Also, the main characters in both stories had a mentor that showed them that there is indeed, more to life than what they have been doing. In both stories, there was a higher
With the lifeboat symbolising faith and Richard Parker as Pi’s primal instinct, Martel depicts Pi’s prolonged fight for survival as assuming the behaviour of a tiger allows him to endure the voyage. By foreshadowing Pi’s tense relationship with a tiger and the tragic sinking of the ship, the audience speculates that Pi will persevere, despite his unfortunate circumstances. Lastly, the recurring motif of food, water and territory requires both castaways to respect and depend on each other for their survival. Through the literary techniques of symbolism, foreshadowing and motifs, Martel enables the audience to explore the central theme of survival as they too experience being a castaway in the Pacific Ocean through Pi’s life
...eating the zebra alive in Chapter 45. Another example of Thanatos is shown when the hyena bites a hole into the zebra and Pi feels a sense of hatred towards the hyena for hurting the zebra and he even considers attacking it. An id and ego split is also shown between Pi and Richard Parker by showing Richard Parker to be an imaginary tiger that is created by Pi in order to keep him alive and focused on staying alive. Pi eventually abandons his superego and partakes in eating meat, even though he was a strict vegetarian prior to being lost at sea. Over the duration of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the story relates to Freud’s theories in several ways that are made blatantly obvious; these relations are what makes this story come together to keep the reader involved and interested.
This unimaginable tale, is the course of events upon Pi’s journey in the Pacific ocean after the ship that Pi and his family were aboard crashes, leaving him stranded with a tiger named Richard Parker, an orangutan, a zebra, and a hyena. Pi loses everything he has and starts to question why this is happening to him. This is parallel to the story of Job. Job is left with nothing and is experiencing great suffering and he begins to demand answers from God. Both Pi and Job receive no answers, only being left with their faith and trust. To deal with this great suffering Pi begins to describe odd things which begin to get even more unbelievable and ultimately become utterly unrealistic when he reaches the cannibalistic island. Richard Parker’s companionship serves to help Pi through these events. When the reader first is intoduced to Richard Parker he emerges from the water, making this symbolic of the subconscious. Richard Parker is created to embody Pi’s alter ego. Ironically, each of these other animals that Pi is stranded with comes to symbolize another person. The orangutan represents Pi’s mother, the zebra represents the injured sailor, and the hyena represents the cook. Pi fabricated the people into animals in his mind to cope with the disillusion and trails that came upon him while stranded at the erratic and uncontrollable sea,
The protagonist, Pi is initially apprehensive to accept Richard Parker on the raft, but later comes to appreciate the tiger once he realizes this animal’s presence is crucial for his survival on the boat. First, Pi is scared and reluctant to accept his shadow self because it conflicts with his character and complicates his beliefs. This is evident when he says, “Together? We’ll be together? Have I gone mad? I woke up to what I was doing […]. Let go […] Richard Parker […] I don’t want you here […]. Get lost. Drown! Drown!!” (Martel 123). Though Pi recognizes his shadow self by encouraging Richard Parker to come on the boat, he soon realizes that he is about to accept his shadow self. He instantly regrets his decision and throws an oar at him in an effort to stop Richard Parker. His action symbolizes his denial and confusion he feels towards the extent of br...
Choices play a prominent role in ensuring comfort and happiness in life. People make choices, which ultimately shape their lives. In Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi, the main character, Pi Patel is forced to make choices, which go against his morals, but ultimately keep him alive. This becomes clear when Pi chooses to change his person by eating meat. Pi then chooses to eliminate all personal boundaries, due to his incredible will to survive. Finally, he chooses to view all of the people on the life boat as animals in order to cope with the psychological distress of being lost at sea. When faced with choices, Pi puts all morals behind him to survive.
perceive as reality. Allegories are small stories that deal with giant ideas. These stories help
Pi thinks of God and Richard Parker every time as they are the reason for Pi to live on. Faith kept Pi from giving up. Many symbolisms are seen throughout the book which represent the themes of the novel. One of them is the orange lifebuoy.
of what it is an allegory of differs widely, due to the fact that the
Imagine being stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat, not alone but with some carnivorous animals, as company. The chances of survival do not seem so high, but when one has the will to survive, they can do anything to attain it. Pi Patel and his family are on their way to Canada from Pondicherry, India, when their cargo ship the Tsimtsum sinks. Pi is not the only survivor of the ship, along with him is a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a 450-pound orange Bengal tiger. Pi travels across the Pacific Ocean in only a lifeboat, with food dwindling quickly, he needs to find land and most of all survive the voyage. In Life of Pi; Yann Martel develops the idea that having the will to survive is a crucial key to survival; this is demonstrated through symbolism of the colour orange, having religion on the protagonist’s side and the thirst and hunger experienced by the protagonist.
An allegory is a literary piece that represents a greater and hidden idea. Animal Farm is an allegory because it represents all the revolutions that have resulted in people's freedom, such as the civil rights movement and the Arab spring. Furthermore, Animal Farm paints a picture of how animals are treated horribly until they cannot work anymore, at which point they get killed or sold. This also is an allegory that represents the Holocaust.
People don't truly accept life for what it is until they've actually tasted adversity and went through those misfortunes and suffering. We are put through many hardships in life, and we learn to understand and deal with those issues along the way. We find that life isn't just about finding one's self, but about creating and learning from our experiences and background. Adversity shapes what we are and who we become as individuals. Yann Martel's Life of Pi shows us that adverse situations help shape a person's identity and play a significant role in one's lief by determining one's capabilities and potential, shaping one's beliefs and values, and defining the importance and meaning of one's self.