Yann Martel said, “If you stumble over mere believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?” The main conflict of “Life of Pi” is how Piscine holds on to his intense belief in people and religion. Within the novel, Pi creates two accounts of the ordeal on the lifeboat. One of the largest decisions of the story is deciding which events actually transpired. I believe that the true story is the one with the humans because emotions affected Pi and his honest belief that people are good and that there is a lot of evil in the human world. After the Tsimtsum sank, Pi went through a multitude …show more content…
Pi was raised to be both accepting and loving and this proved to be a downfall when the cook killed his mother after he trusted him. At the end of the novel when Pi talks about the cook killing his mother he says, “ But he never said ‘I’m sorry.’ Why do we cling to our evil ways?” (Martel 310). I believe that this is the scene when Pi really let the reality of what was going on around him slip away and let the animals take their place. Even after letting his emotions taking over and killing the cook, Pi still seems to have a hard time understanding that some people are just plain evil. Earlier, Pi talks more in depth of the cooks terrible ways and says, “The cook threw himself upon the sailor’s head and before our very eyes scalped him and pulled off his face.” (Martel 3017). Here, Pi describes how terrible and cannibalistic the cook is. I believe this is another moment where Pi began to let the realize the severity of the situation and what a toll staying with the cook will have on him. After the cook killed Pi’s mother, Pi says, “No whip could have inflicted a more painful lash. I held my mother’s head in my hands.” (Martel 310). In a final scene of depraved, raw anger, the cook takes out his sociopathic rage and Pi lets the last bit of his sanity slip away. I believe that Pi created the story of the animals so he did not have to deal with the memories of the human deaths, especially
At the end of the novel, Pi narrates another story, which is so cruel that it does not match the "Happy Ending" in the last sentence of the first part. In this story, Pi’s mother and four real people fall into the lifeboat instead of Pi and three animals, and eventually we find that only Pi survived. He not only has to see his mother being killed, but also has to eat human bodies to keep alive like that cook.
The demand to survive in an extreme environment encourages certain individuals to proceed to live their life despite the hardships they may face. In the novels, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the individuals must discover what it takes to obtain the will to survive in these extreme environments they are presented with. Thus, resulting in comparisons between their mental states (internal challenges), and contrasts between their physical states (external challenges) by Louie Zamperini and Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi).
In conclusion, this is why I believe the book “Life of PI” is a story about a hero’s journey in the book. Pi is thrown into the situation without doing anything wrong. Pi doesn’t deserve this, infact he is a bright and smart kid as mentioned in earlier pages from the book. You want Pi to live, mainly because Pi doesn’t deserve to die. This, in the end, is why I believe Pi’s journey of survival in the harsh Pacific Ocean is a hero’s journey type of
At the beginning of the book Pi had the luxury of being in control of what he eats, this choice quickly dissolved when he was on the boat as he was forced to eat meat. Morally at the beginning Pi found killing a fish a nearly impossible deed, demonstrated when he stated, “A life time of peaceful vegetarianism stood between me and the willful beheading of a fish,” slowly after the beheading he sacrificed his beliefs and adapted to the situation he was in, resulting in him becoming a carnivour. Martel demonstrated Pi’s drastic dietary change by reflecting it onto the algae island. Vegetarianism and carnivorism can be considered polar opposites, day and night, black and white. When Pi had a choice of what he ate there was “light” in his life, but darkness came after the ship sank, shown when referring to his first night he stated, ”Darkness came. There was no moon. Clouds hid the stars.” and that choice evaporated, the same idea was echoed in the island, when there was light (day) the island was a peaceful safe but when darkness came it became a fiery hell. Martel appropriately used the island as a metaphor for the black and white contrast between Pi’s change in
I feel like you look at all animals like some of us look at dogs. I could not even think about eating a dog or even a cat. People look at dogs like basically humans. They feed it human food, look after it like a child, some even have their own beds. If I looked at every animal like a dog or cat, I would have a lot more respect for animals. I would disagree with zoos because they can’t roam free as they please. This scene shows how low Pi had to stoop in his mind to stay alive. Eating meat alone for Pi was hard for him but he actually had to kill an animal, snapping their neck to be exact. If he could barely peel a banana because it sounded like the breaking of an animal’s neck, I could not imagine having to kill an animal to eat it. This scene took a lot out of Pi, maybe he realized that he might actually die and this is the end if he is stooping this low to eat food. This was one huge reality check for Pi, calling himself a savage just implies that. Maybe this was the scene where he sat back and maybe thought to himself; “maybe this is really happening, maybe I am lost at sea with a wild beast.” There really isn’t a choice for Pi at this point on out, he has to fight for his
Throughout the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the notion of how the concepts of idealism and truth mold an individual’s life are vividly displayed. This is emblematized as Pi questions the idea of truth and the affects it has on different aspect of life, as well as his idealistic values being transformed due to the contrast between taking action and sheer belief. The messages generated will alter the way the reader thinks, as well as reshaping their overall perception of truth.
In the book the Life of Pi by Yann Martel, religion plays an important role in Pi’s life. When on the lifeboat, Pi used his faith as a way to motivate himself to live. Without his religious beliefs, there is no way to guarantee he would have made it off the lifeboat.
Religion is and always has been a sensitive topic. Some choose to acknowledge that there is a God and some choose to deny this fact to the death. For those who deny the presence of a higher being, “Life of Pi” will most likely change your thought process concerning this issue. Yann Martel’s, “Life of Pi”, is a compelling story that shows the importance of obtaining religion and faith. Piscine (Pi) Patel is both the protagonist and the narrator of Martell’s religious eye-opener who undergoes a chain effect of unbelievable catastrophes. Each of these catastrophic events leaving him religiously stronger because he knows that in order to endure what he has endured, there has got to be a God somewhere.
Pi starts a story without animals in which a French Cook, a sailor with a broken leg and his mother are with him on the lifeboat. The cook cuts off the sailor’s leg and eats him, scaring Pi. Later Pi’s mother and the cook have an argument which leads the cook to kills Pi’s mother, throwing her head to Pi. After, Pi kills the cook. Mr. Okamoto notices the similarities in the stories the two men don’t know what to believe. They continue to question for details about the actual sinking of the ship. Pi requests that they choose which story they like best. The two men enjoy the first story, to which causes Pi to begin to cry.
...h up their session, Pi asks them, “‘So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer?’” The factual or provable existence of God is not necessarily relevant to whether someone should believe in Him. This requirement of proof for belief is typical of the agnostic, whose sole belief is that he or she cannot believe either way because there is no proof either way. However, life is a story, and in real life, there must be a story to tell. When it comes to Life of Pi, there is hardly any difference between life and story, so how could the novel not mimic life, being the story of a life itself? A life perhaps embellished to become better, just as readers must embellish their own lives in favor of the better story.
The Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, is the story of a young man, Piscine, or Pi for short, who experiences unbelievable and unrealistic events, which are so unrealistic ambiguity is aroused amongst the reader. Duality reoccurs over the course of the novel through every aspect of Pi’s world view and is particularly seen in the two contradictory stories, which displays the brutal nature of the world. Martel wonderfully crafts and image of duality and skepticism though each story incorporated in this novel.
“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive” (Martel 44-45). Inside every human being, there is an extremely primal and animalistic trait that can surface when the will to survive becomes greater than the morals of the person. This trait allows humans to overcome their fear to do things which they wouldn’t normally be able to do in order to survive when they’re in extreme peril and in a do or die situation. Throughout the book, Life of Pi, survival is a dominant and central theme. The will to survive changes people and this includes the main character of the story, Piscine Molitor Patel. Survival will even change the most timid, religious, and law-abiding people. Yann Martel, using Pi as an example, tries to explain that all humans must do three things in order to survive a life threatening event: one must give up their morals, one must find a way to keep sane, and one must be ready to compromise and sacrifice.
Piscine Molitor Patel, this name carries great significance throughout the novel Life Of Pi. Associations of Pi 's name with water is very clear to the reader. Pi was named after a pool in Paris, Piscine Molitor, Mr. Adirubasamy 's favourite pool, Mr. Adirubasamy also taught Pi how to swim. He then became a skilful swimmer. I believe that the author has incorporated this connection to make Pi 's story of the shipwreck seem more realistic, because Pi is a good swimmer, then he has a skill to aid him in living on an ocean. This is used to enhance the authors credibility and make the fantasized story feel more realistic. Another thing that is interesting about the name Pi, is that it is a very unusual name, we don 't regularly see people with
In the lifeboat, his choices were based on his religion. For instance, Pi hesitated first to kill the fish because he was vegetarian, but he set aside his religion because he believes that he needs to survive since he thinks God is with him. He thanks Vishnu, a Hindu God, for coming as a fish to save him. “Even when God seemed to have abandoned me … indifferent to my suffering, He was watching; and when I was beyond all of hope of saving, He gave me rest, and gave me a sign to continue my journey.” This quote portrays how Pi felt that God was with him every time, and that is why he is willing to live and not give up.
In Life of Pi, Pi is influenced by the decisions that animals make while onboard the lifeboat and the humanlike characters that they represent in Pi’s factual story. Many readers believe that the story of the animals is just a figment of Pi's imagination and that it was just something to keep him alive. Others believe that the story of the animals really did happen in Pi's time on the Pacific Ocean. No one will ever know what the real story of Pi's journey was, but everyone who has heard about Pi's multiple stories will have their own opinions and interpretations of what really happened.