Mythological Hero's Journey In Life Of Pi

Mythological Hero’s Journey in Life of Pi

By: Aanshi Gandhi The novel, Life of Pi written by Yann Martel explores a wonderful story of a young boy into his becoming of a hero. A hero is not credible by only completing the famous Hero’s Journey but by acquiring knowledge from the journey and understanding the necessity of why completing the brutal and tough expedition is important as well. As the novel progresses, readers start identifying Pi as a hero as he completes the entire journey alongside valuing the experience and obtaining worthwhile skills from the mission. Through this completion of the Hero’s Journey Pi demonstrates a hero does not need a cape, supernatural powers or even physical strength, rather perseverance and faith can create

Through the completion of the steps in the journey, the protagonist of the story successfully becomes a hero. The main character in Life of Pi, Pi demonstrates this journey with his background being introduced as sad and gloomy with an academic background in religious studies and zoology. He is also shown as a believer of three ‘polar’ religions, Hinduism, Christianity and later Islam simultaneously. The second stage, the call to action occurs when Pi’s father makes a dramatic decision to emigrate out of India and into Canada. This subtly introduces how Pi’s life was going to begin to experience turmoil and learn how to overcome grim obstacles. Every hero has a moment of refusal where they momentarily decline the journey out of fear of the unknown. Pi demonstrates this as well with his hesitation of leaving his homeland and travelling to a foreign and unknown country. The most climatic stage of the journey would be crossing the threshold which shows the hero entering an unfamiliar district with unknown rules (Writers Journey). When the ship sinks, Pi gets separated on a lifeboat stranded alone with only the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan and a Bengali tiger. This validates Pi’s unawareness of what to do in the circumstances. The ordeal, when the hero faces their greatest fear and briefly meets death is the

His experience of being stranded on a life boat in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean with the sole company of a 300 pound Bengali tiger was unimaginably difficult however he built character by observing his situations and finding solutions to overcome them. Pi learnt numerous advanced survival skills and developed a lot of quick thinking abilities to successfully survive for 225 days. Completing the hero’s journey is important in everyone’s lives, not just fictional characters as it allows opportunities for learning new skills and overcoming your biggest fears. Through the hardest stage of tests / allies / enemies Pi developed these skills by using the limited resources available to him and created life-saving equipment such as the raft to aid in his survival. Pi shows his extensive knowledge about animals as he manages to manipulate Richard Parker into allowing them to have equal territories on the lifeboat. His personal development is seen through his unshakable faith in his three Gods and his devotion to his religions. Throughout his struggles Pi does not once blame his God for the situation he is put in; rather, he thanks Him whenever he feels a sign has been given such as the storm or the two