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A shocking event puts Piscine Patel in a extreme journey that he has never witnessed. In the novel Life of Pi written by Yann Martel, Oi Patel goes through suffering after barely surviving a ship wreck. His family had plans to move to Canada since India was stuck in a crisis and the Patel family was afraid that they would lose their zoo. They took a ship and set sail when they found themselves in a dangerous storm causing the ship to wreck. Pi finds himself the only survivor with an orangutan, a hyena, and a zebra with a broken leg. The hyena kills the Zebra for food and then later, kills the orangutan named Orange Juice. Pi tries to isolate himself from the yen until Richard Parker comes and eats the hyena. His presence was unexpected because …show more content…
he was hidden under a big tarp the entire time. Their adventure leads Richard Parker and Pi into a island with strange plants for Pi to eat since he was vegetarian. The plant’s strangeness causes him to leave the island. Afterwards, his fierce dehydration causes Pi to become blind. He meets another blind sailor and they greet each other until Rickard Parker kills the sailor. Then, Pi regains sight through tears and finds the land of Mexico. Richard Parker runs off into the wild and leaves Pi to wake up in a hospital surrounded by Japanese investigators who want to know about the ship that disappeared. They find themselves confused by Pi’s stories which just let them assume what actually happened. The Life of Pi and the poem, “Bird” both share examples of magical realism which were used by the author to enhance their writings of journeys. Magical Realism allows the text Life of Pi to flow. Yann Martel uses animals and actions of animals to do this. Pi Patel states that “I bent down, picked up the fish and threw it towards him…. this was the way to tame him”(Martel 181). This example shows magical realism because the situation was realistic, but the wild tiger’s actions make the situational magical or fantasy like. Having a wild tiger like Richard Parker act tamed the way he did seems to be impossible. The poem “Bird” by Pablo Neruda, shows similar examples of magical realism with how something near impossible happens in such a realistic setting. Richard Parker seems like he would eat Pi because Pi describes him in many ways as huge and dangerous. However, over time Pi earns his trust by taming him which can be considered magical realism. A normal tiger from the wild would have killed Pi by this point. The tiger’s patience and trust is a good example of magical realism in Life of Pi. Pi witnesses remarkable things due to the magical realism that takes place in the text.
His relationship continued to grow and it really showed when Pi states “He gave me a life, my own, but at the expense of taking one… he ripped the flesh off the mean’s frame and cracked his bones”(Martel 255). Here the audience can notice how Pi and Richard Parker trust each other. Richard Parker’s actions were to protect Pi which is definitely magical realism. A normal tiger would not just protect a young boy when he could just kill the boy. Their teamwork and ways of trust could only be found in something magical or a fantasy. In “Bird” by Pablo Neruda the bird watcher’s point of view is realistic just like Pi’s. Both other use this technique to find an interest with the reader. This technique allows this magical journey between Pi and Richard Parker to happen. Yann Martel wisely sets up the magical realism with an amazing plot. Martel makes the plot ideal for magical realism by giving both Richard Parker and Piscine Patel background of their lives. The author also perfectly chose the animals and events to allow this relationship to occur. Religion plays a big role as well because it gives Pi something to look up to during his fight against nature and grief. The author’s wise choice of using magical realism allows the plot to strengthen and entertain the …show more content…
reader. Journeys were expressed by magical realism in Life of Pi by Yann Martel and “Bird” by Pablo Neruda.
An incredible journey is filled with this technique allowing the plot to progress. In the Life of Pi magical realism allows a relationship to be built. Pi began his life as a young boy named after a famous pool in France. He was raised Hinduistic which made him vegetarian. His parents owned a popular zoo in Pondicherry which was at rick due to India’s prime minister. Companies and businesses were at rick due to questionable actions from the prime minister. The family decided to take the animals on a ship and head towards Canada. However, they did not make it far when the ship was sunken and Pi was thrown on a lifeboat with four other animals. He quickly realizes his life is at risk when he sees a hungry hyena. He quickly witnesses the zebra with a broken leg being tortured by the hyena. He finds himself in another terrible situation after the orangutan is killed and he thinks that is just him and the hyena. He then luckily finds Richard Parker under the tarpaulin who kills the hyena. Pi then funds ways to survive and most of all, tame the tiger. Richard Parker and Pi find an island, but quickly leave when Pi does no like the plants. Pi become blind from dehydration and runs into another castaway which Richard Parker eats. They find themselves in Mexico where Richard Parker runs away. Pi gets to the hospital and is questioned by the Japanese ministry of transport who have a
hard time believing Pi’s story. The novel Life of Pi involved magical realism to bring Pi and Richard Parker on an amazing journey. Yann Martel did this wisely which is a reason the reader could enjoy the text.
Contrast. Tone. Metaphors. These literary elements are all used in Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s in relation to a larger theme in the novel – confidence. In the book, a man named McMurphy is put into a mental ward run by Nurse Ratched, who has complete power and control over the men. They all fear her and submit to her due to fear, suppressing their confidence and manhood. When McMurphy came, he was like a spark that ignites a roaring fire in the men; they gain back the confidence that they lost and become free. In one passage, McMurphy takes the men on a fishing trip where he helps them stray away from the Nurse’s power and learn to believe in themselves. Throughout the passage, the use of contrast, positive tone, and metaphors of
Hosseini’s purpose of writing the Kite Runner was to teach the readers the different ethnic groups in Afghanistan. The main character, Amir, is a Pashtun and Pashtuns are Sunni Muslims, then there are Hazara’s that the Pashtuns do not get along with. Hazara’s are not welcomed by the Pashtuns because they are different social classes.
In Life of Pi, storytelling is told through the eyes of Pi Patel, who’s the main character. He gives such a bewildering story with many descriptive details that it’s hard to believe. He starts his story off by him surviving the shipwreck, jumping into a life boat with a zebra, hyena, tiger, and an orangutan. One important factor to consider is how he documents his journeys in a journal which he finds in the survival kit on the lifeboat. This is relevant because this might have served a role in keeping him sane as writing down his experiences gave him some sort of relief. Towards the ending of the novel we see Pi being interviewed by two Japanese reporters, Mr.Okamoto and
In the short story, “The Story of An Hour”, written by Kate Choppin, a woman with a heart trouble is told her husband had passed away in a railroad disaster. Mrs. Mallard was depressed, then she came to a realization that she was free. Back in the day this story was written, women did not have many rights. They were overruled by their husband. As she became more aware of how many doors her husband death would open, she had passed away. The doctors had said she had died of heart disease--of the joy that kills. The irony in the situation was that as she was dying, her husband walked through the door, alive.
In the novel The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the author expresses a potent message, being that God pardons us if we have to sin in order to survive desperate circumstances. Pi Patel obtains a very conservative definition of the word “sin.” While living in India Pi was a child who possessed strong morals, believing that a sin is an evil act like killing a living thing and eating it. However, while on the lifeboat Pi cannot survive on his vegetarian diet and must therefore resort to killing and eating meat to sustain himself. Since starting to kill food, Pi woefully states, “Lord to think that I’m a strict vegetarian. To think that when I was a child I shuddered when I snapped open a banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of an animals neck. I descended to a level of savagery that I never imagined possible,” it is then obvious that Pi is disappointed in his new
...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.
The projection of Richard Parker helps Pi to be aware of this current situation, which was him being stranded in the ocean on a lifeboat in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. His fear towards Richard Parker was one of the reasons of his survival. Pi says, “Fear and reason fought over answer. Fear said yes. He was a fierce, 450-pound carnivore. Each of his claws was sharp as a knife” (Martel 108). Pi describes Richard Parker as an extremely dangerous, fearful, and vicious predator. This causes Pi keep aware because he is on a boat with a deadly carnivore. He tries to keep awake at night while being on the lifeboat with Richard Parker from the fear of being attacked and eaten by the Bengal tiger. However, since Richard Parker is Pi’s id, it was actually him keeping himself aware and alive. Pi states, “If I still had the will to live, it was thanks to Richard Parker. He kept me from thinking too much about my family and my tragic circumstances” (Martel 164). This shows how Richard Parker occupies Pi’s mind and influences his thoughts about the tragic incident that has happened. The will to live for Pi is no longer his family, but Richard Parker, his id. Richard Parker taught Pi how to survive based on his instincts an...
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...
Pi was afraid and surprised that Richard Parker was in the boat once he had lifted the blanket. Then Richard Parker had roared at him and tried to attack by his claws ,but pi had gotten away as soon as he did. Pi and Richard Parker started to roamed slowly around the boat in the middle of the ocean. Pi didn't trust Richard Parker because he knows that he only wanted to kill and eat pi. Pi tried to get rid of the tiger and then he tried avoiding the tiger, but as time goes on he got tired of trying get rid of Richard Parker. So then he began tame the tiger by using his whistle he had gotten from his locker. As he and Richard Parker started to get along through the past days,they have become really close friends.
There are many ways that as humans we try to understand and make sense of the world around us. One of the ways we simplify our reality is using metaphors, they allow us to turn unfamiliar and complex concepts into explicit terms. In the Life of Pi the author, Yann Martel, uses metaphors to familiarize distant concepts with the reader. He allows the reader to understand and relate to incomprehensible events. After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the Pacific ocean, a single lifeboat is all that remains. The lifeboat consists of a zebra, an orangutan, hyena, a royal bengal tiger, and a sixteen year old boy, Piscine Patel. The events that follow are unbelievable and physically, spiritually, and mentally challenge and change each survivor.
He lives in a zoo, and is surrounded and influenced by animals daily. His knowledge of animals grows as he does, and he learns and sees new things year after year at the zoo. One peculiar, yet crucial thing that Pi learns while living in the zoo, is the concept of zoomorphism. Zoomorphism, “is where an animal takes a human being or another animal, to be one of its kind”(84). He explains that within the zoo that he spent his childhood, there were many cases of zoomorphism, from the strange friendly relationship between the goats and the rhinoceroses, to the even stranger friendly predator-prey relationship between a viper and a mouse. Pi then says that the only explanation for zoomorphism is that the “measure of madness moves life in strange but saving ways”(85). The rhinoceros and goats get along because the rhinoceros, “[is] in need of companionship”(85), and without the goats, the rhinoceros would become depressed and die. This explanation of zoomorphism is major foreshadowing and background on why Richard Parker and Pi can live together on the lifeboat. Like the rhinoceros, both Pi and Richard Parker would have died without the company of another being. The “madness” that is the relationship between Richard Parker and Pi, scares Pi and causes him stress. However, this stress and fear keeps Pi alive, and ultimately saves his life. Therefore, the story with the animals is true, because
In the short story, “The Story of An Hour”, Kate Chopin emphasizes the freedom that one woman in the late 1800s found in the midst of a portrayal of her husband being dead. This woman, Louise Mallard, cannot stop dreaming of freedom once she finds out that her husband is dead. This leads on to her dreaming about all the things that she could do in the absence of her husband from her life and the beginning of her new life as a widow. The overall tone of this passage is one of freedom and this tone is supported by the use of imagery of spring, detail, and diction.
“The Story of an Hour” was written by Kate Chopin, she uses irony to describe the oppressive and unhappy nature of marriage during her time. Chopin wrote about subjects that were considered taboo and not very traditional for her time. In “The Story of an Hour”, Chopin’s main character is named Mrs. Mallard, she is a young lady who is trapped in an unwanted and oppressive marriage. Chopin uses situational irony and dramatic irony thought out her story. She uses symbols to create an ironic tone throughout the story. Chopin’s unexpected plot makes the reader question what is truly happening in her story.
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,
Having just experienced the sinking of his family’s ship, and being put onto a life boat with only a hyena, Pi felt completely lost and alone. When he sees Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger from his family’s zoo, it is a familiar face to him. His initial reaction is to save the life of his familiar friend so that he may have a companion, and a protector aboard the lifeboat. Suddenly Pi realizes just what he is doing. He is saving the life of Richard Parker, by welcoming him, a 450 pound Bengal tiger, onto the small lifeboat. He experiences a change of heart when helping the tiger onto the boat. Pi realizes that he is now posing a threat on his own life. With Richard Parker on the boat, Pi is faced with not only the fight to survive stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but the fight to survive living with a meat eating tiger. The change of heart that Pi experiences might possibly mean that he is an impulsive thinker. It may mean that he often does something on impulse without thinking it through, and then later regrets his actions.