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Themes on nature vs nurture
Themes on nature vs nurture
Themes on nature vs nurture
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There will be lots of trials in a person’s life. Some will be small like having to pass classes. Some will be bigger like when a friend moves away. Some are extremely large and can disable you, however some believe that even the biggest challenges that life throws at you can be conquered by just not giving up. One of these people is Yann Martel where in his book Life of Pi, he shows that anything is possible if you don’t give up. This is evident throughout the entire plot where Pi keeps trying to stay alive. Yann Martel knew that the most important thing about any trial is that you have to overcome it. He tries to prepare you for this by making sure that you won’t get discouraged while reading. He conveys this by having pi say “This story …show more content…
Pi is full of love. He has it for everything that is alive. This is quite possibly why pi is a vegetarian. He loves all things that live in a way. He loves life so much that he had issues killing fish. He swung a hatchet at a fish’s head multiple times but couldn’t beat it to death. He couldn’t look at it while he killed it so he wrapped it up and broke its neck(189). His love was not always equal for everything though. His love for himself and for Richard Parker was more powerful than his love of life for other lives. This lead to him killing fish and turtles. This is a feeling. Martel probably knew that most people have somebody that they care about extremely. Somebody that they care enough about to bend their morals to protect and to make sure that they live. By showing the love that Pi has through having him say it things like “I really do. I love you, Richard Parker. If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t think I would Make it. No, I wouldn’t”(236). Martel uses these little spurts of love in his novel to try to connect to the reader. He also uses it as an attempt to engage the reader with emotion by seeing that love can be extremely pushing and when it’s all you have left, that it is
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.
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...
...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.
Pi spoke in a guilty tone when recounting one of his stories of sea, “I will confess that I caught one of his arms with the gaff and used it for bait. I prayed for his soul every day,” by having Pi “confess” what he did to the sailor Martel provides the character with a guilty tone (256). After the incident with the Dorado, Pi understood that God forgives sins necessary towards survival. However, it is obvious that Pi has an internal struggle with guilt since he still feels the need to pray for the sailor years after cutting his arm. While on the lifeboat, there were some desperate situations in which a sin had to be committed in order for Pi Patel to survive, and although God proved that the boy’s actions in those times of stress where forgiven, the child still struggled to relieve his memories of certain dramatic
...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.
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...
Prendick and Pi are sickened when they display bestiality despite the fact that the animal tendencies of both protagonists were present from the beginning of both novels. Chapter Eight of Life of Pi establishes that the mirror in the zoo is a physical representation of the potential threat humans pose, and the savagery to which humans can descend. This is substantiated in the ensuing events when Pi, who does not appear to be in his right mind, rescues Richard Parker from a watery death and allows him in the lifeboat. As Parker is shown to be an embodiment of Pi, this suggests that Pi is inviting the bestial traits Parker represents into cohabitation with him. Furthermore, Pi “tears flowing down [his] cheeks” (Martel 203) breaks the neck of a flying fish. Yet, not a long while later he can “gleefully bludgeon to death a dorado” (Martel 205) or suck the blood out of a freshly decapitated sea turtle. Pi comments “a person can get used to anything, even to killing” (Martel 205). He further notices with shame his animal-like habits and compares himself to Parker stating he “ate like an animal, that this noisy frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of [his] was exactly the way Richard Parker ate” (Martel 249). He eventually resorts to cannibalism to satisfy his hunger, “descending to a level
At the start of novel, and when Pi is a child, he is extremely religious. He devotes his life to loving God, and even practices three religions to do so. He practices Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. His explanation for practicing all three is that according to Bapu Gandhi, “‘All religions are true’”(69). Pi explains that he practices all three religions because, “[he] just wants to love God”(69). Pi’s major religious values and faith in God continue to shape his life daily, until the shipwreck leaves him stranded on the Pacific, with a tiger for 227 days. Although Pi still remains religious and continues to praise God most days, the shipwreck does change Pi’s religious morals. Richard Parker is the factor that begins this change in Pi, because Pi knows that in order to survive he will have to fish to provide for Richard Parker if he wants to avoid being eaten himself. Fishing, however goes against the religious practice of Hinduism, which requires vegetarianism. Also, killing animals goes against Pi’s whole religious morals to not hurt another living being. Pi says the idea of killing a fish, and of “beating a soft living head with a hammer [is] simply too much”(183). It goes against everything he believes in. So, he decides to instead cover to fish’s head and break its neck (183). He explains that, “he [gives] up a number of times.
...rder to test his readers, Martel uses the believability of Pi’s story from beginning to help his case in the conclusion. Also, by mixing in the ability for the reader to connect with Pi through his emotional struggle, Martel is able to make the reader question their belief while still making them want to believe in Pi’s tale of struggle. This story also opens up the door for the reader to question the relevance of facts and truth in a story, seeing as they cannot rely on facts to decide which story they decide to put their faith in by the conclusion of the story. In the end this is not a story of the one singular life of Pi because neither story is rooted in fact, it is a story about choosing what is the better story, it is a story rooted in making you believe in literature.
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.
Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” shows all three of the main elements of a hero’s journey: the departure, initiation and the return, helping the story to greatly resemble Joseph Campbell’s structure of a hero’s journey. Through the trials Pi has to face, he proves himself to be a true hero. He proves himself, not just while trapped on the lifeboat with Richard Parker, but also before the sinking of the Tsimtsum. His achievement to fulfill the heroic characteristics of Campbell’s model are evident as he goes though the three stages.
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
...ly interrupts: “Oh, yeah, by the way, everything was fake. Hyena is the cook, orangutan is Pi’s mother, zebra is Happy Buddhist and Richard Parker is Pi himself. So, which story do you like more?” Should we stick to magical tale, even if it is one giant lie? Should we go with more boring and plain story, which actually follows rules of reality? Finishing on a such cowardly note, Martel does not notice that his Pi is more immobile than any agnostic, as we are stuck not knowing anything about the end and wondering about the overall purpose of the novel. At least, agnostics acknowledge not having all answers and leave their minds opened for anything presented to them. That is far more honest than being lazy and saying that we should look for “the better story”, since there is no difference anyway. Because there is: it does not make a good story out of Martel’s own one.
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.
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.