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Life of pi literature essay
Relationships in the life of pi
Life of pi literature essay
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In the novel Life of Pi, the author Yann Martel does state that the novel will have a happy ending but when looking more deeply into this idea, it shows that the novel did not in fact have a happy ending for Pi. This can be proven from the fact that all his loved ones left him, from his suffering and the experience traumatized him. Throughout the novel Life of Pi, the character Pi faces horrible experiences with the people he calls his family. When the ship sank, Pi lost his parents and brother. This changed his life forever because he had to live with the fact that from this point and on in his life, he was completely alone. The fact that his entire family died and he didn’t even get to say goodbye proves that Pi did not have a happy ending. …show more content…
When Pi is talking to the two reporters’ one of them says “He’s already had plenty and most he hasn’t eaten. They’re right there beneath his bed sheet” [Martel, chapter 98], the reporters realize that Pi is hoarding the cookies and think he’s crazy, but he’s only doing that because he’s only traumatized from the catastrophe and since he was limited on food in the boat; stashing food is purely a habit for him now. The experience traumatized him so much that he continues to do what he did on the boat on land too and that’s not a happy ending for him because he wants to leaves that experience in the past but brings it with him everyone he …show more content…
The experience Pi had on the lifeboat was horrible and was not a good time for him. His family, Richard Parker and orange juice which he all loved very much all left him in some way. He starved from hunger, became partially blind and physical suffered so much that he would never forget it. Last but not least, this entire experience traumatized Pi with the ship wreck, Richard Parker killing a human and the way he hoarded food traumatized him. How could all that Pi went through sound like a happy ending when he lost so much of himself throughout his
Stranded for 227 days at sea in a lifeboat, with no one else except an adult Bengal tiger. This is exactly what the main character Pi, in "The Life of Pi" went through. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel is a story about a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel, an Indian boy who survives more than seven months floating on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean, with no one else but a 450-pound tiger (Cooper). Yann Martel was born on June 25, 1963, in Salamanca, Spain. His parents, Emile Martel and Nicole Perron, were both born in Canada. He spent his childhood in several different countries, including France, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica. As an adult, he lived in many other places but one of them was India, which may be where he got inspiration for writing “Life of Pi”. Yann Martel uses the literary elements similes and foreshadowing, to express the theme that believing in religion can give you the faith to want to survive.
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
...knowledge his shadow self. He was able to survive his plight on the lifeboat because of the characteristics of his shadow self, Richard Parker. Even at the loss of his shadow self, Pi remains connected and constantly misses this part of his persona. After his ordeal on the lifeboat, Pi becomes rational and humane; however his experiences has scarred him, and will forever remain with him. Readers can definitely learn from Pi’s experience with his shadow self. The more we refute our shadow, the more it weighs us down. However, if we are willing to come to terms with the reality of our shadow, learn how it works, “tame” it so that it does not control us, we would be more literate and enlightened.
Firstly, Loss of loved ones is one of the main adversities that characters face in these stories. Pi faces loss of loved ones when he realizes that his family died. As Pi
Pi grieves for the loss of his family but eventually decides that he is alive and will live on for them and for himself. It is this hope that guides Pi's journey and allows him to overcome his loss. In the first chapter of the novel, which outlines Pi's life after the events of his journey, Pi says “Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly,
Martel’s novel is about the journey of a young man being forced to test his limits in order to survive the unthinkable predicament of being lost at sea alongside an adult Bengal tiger. Life of Pi starts out by introducing an anonymous author on a quest to find his next big story and goes to a man by the name of Piscine Molitor Patel who supposedly has a story worth hearing. Patel begins his story talking about his childhood and the main events that shaped him such as his family’s zoo, the constant curiosity in religion he sought as a young boy and also how he got his nickname Pi. Mr. Patel continues explaining how his father contracts a Japanese ship to transport his family, along with a number of their zoo animals, from India to Canada in order to avoid political upheaval. While traveling the ship began sinking and Pi was the only one to manage to make it onto the life boat and survive the wreck. The disaster left Pi along with a fe...
His love and understanding of zoology was the reason he survived on the life raft. Even though Pi went against his morals and ate meat, Pi saw it as necessary to survive. His will to survive and to eliminate all personal boundaries allowed him to do what ever deed needed to survive. And finally using his knowledge of animals as a means of maintaining a psychological level of sanity, which kept him motivated and sane throughout his time at sea. With the extreme circumstances that Pi lived through, and the means he used to cope with them, it is obvious that his choices were
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 story of Life of Pi is indeed a unique and interesting story that is written by Yann Martell, the author of the book of Life of Pi. This is because this story shows and reveals about the conflicts of man and nature, society and himself. In life or other real life stories, men have always encounter problems and conflicts that go against their ids and things that could have helped them to achieve their pleasures. This has always been occurring in everyone’s daily life as there will always be issues and problems regardless of the place and time. However, in this story, both Pi and his family members had faced challenges and conflicts that have been shown in the book of Life of Pi. The conflicts are of Pi versus the sea, Pi versus his inner beast and Pi and his family versus the society due to the change in government of India. Basically, the story of Life of Pi contains conflicts of the man and nature, society and he himself which can be found in the book itself.
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.
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.
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.
Pi’s challenge to survive unconquerable circumstances is conveyed through Martel’s use of symbolism. Within majority of the novel, Pi and Richard Parker are aboard the lifeboat and face a multitude of hardships throughout their journey, with the most obvious being their struggle to survive 227 days floating upon the Pacific Ocean.
The life of a person is made by one decision after decision, with different decision brought different way of thinking or different perspective. In the novel by Yann Martel 《Life of Pi》, there is also a decision. A decision that make pi able to survive in the middle of the pacific; make the offices feel peace in their mind; make the reader to realize the greatness of the book Pi needs to make he’s story on the Pacific Ocean an unrealistic story so that he can survive the ocean. At the beginning of the part 2 of the book, when Pi did an item check and almost give up he’s will to live on, he said this: “Yes, so long as God with me, I will not die, Amen.” It is worth mentioning that in the item check he made, the final item on the list is “1
In conclusion, the main idea in Life of Pi is that having the will to survive is a key component to survival. The three ways this is shown is through symbolism of the colour orange, having religion on the protagonist’s side and the thirst and hunger experienced by the protagonist. Things do not always happen the way one would want them to happen: “Things didn’t turn out the way they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it” (101) Faith determines ones destiny and nothing can be changed about that, one can live their life to the fullest and enjoy every moment and not regret it. No matter what faith throws at one, as long as they have the will to survive they can pull through anything.