Life Of Pi Minor Characters Essay

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What is the point of minor characters? Are they there just to fill in the blanks while the main character is off saving the world or falling in love? Minor characters are written in for a purpose. They are there to help the main character with their struggles. They help define who they are. In “Life of Pi,” there may not seem like their would be a lot of minor characters considering Pi is stranded by himself in the ocean most of the time, but he was never really alone. The whole time Pi was trapped at sea, he was with Richard Parker. Even though Richard Parker is not human, he played a very important part in Pi’s life. “I had to tame him. It was at that moment that I realized this necessity. It was not a question of him or me, but him and me. We were, literally and figuratively on the same boat. We would live – or we would die – together.” Pi thought this when he realized that he could no longer fear Richard Parker. Pi would have never survived without Richard Parker. Richard Parker helped Pi survive by giving him a reason to live. While Pi could read the survivor manual, Richard Parker could not. Richard Parker’s life depended on Pi. Pi stayed alive to keep Richard Parker alive; if Pi had given up, Richard Parker would have never made it. …show more content…

The survival manual said that to stay alive is to have an active mind, but instead of playing eye-spy like it suggested, Pi had the more dangerous approach of training an adult Bengal tiger. By training him, Pi had to make sure Richard Parker new his territory. Pi used the whistle he had to show dominance over him. Training Richard Parker also involved physical tactics as well, like running around on the boat avoiding Richard Parker’s claws. This also helped Pi stay active which helped him stay awake and focused to

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