Pi feels very insignificant throughout many parts in his life and realizes that he has to adapt to them to become more significant again. In the beginning of the book, we see how Pi has a pretty weird name. His name sounds a lot like “Pissing” and everyone at school and around his neighborhood make fun of him for having a strange name and only start calling him “Pissing”. Pi has started off his life by already feeling insignificant and weird because of him getting bullied about his name, something he is born with. In india he is discovering his spiritual side and learning about different religions. When his family find out that he is following three religions, he is harassed and told he can't do such a thing. Fearing the unknown and things …show more content…
we can't understand tends to make people feel small and scared and this is how pi felt with religion. When he was told he couldn't follow them all and needed to change, confusing him greatly. As a result of his struggle, he decides to change it to Pi and make a new name for himself. On the lifeboat, Pi still felt insignificant.
At first, when he’s on the boat with the other animals, he is the smallest and weakest of the bunch. After watching the hyena, zebra, orangutan, and Richard Parker brawling, Pi found himself hiding and kneeling. “Curiosity got the best of me. I had to see her better. Despite the rolling of the boat, I brought myself to a kneeling position” (Martel 121). After Pi is done hiding from all of the bigger, stronger animals, he gets up and decides to watch it all unfold. This shows his insignificance because he is aware that he is the smallest and weakest of all of the animals on the boat. Eventually all of the animals die off and it is just Pi and Richard Parker left. While he is having a brawl with the tiger over territory and power, he is still terrified. At this moment to stay alive and show he is relevant and has dominance over the tiger, he yells and waves his arms and blows his whistle as loud as he can. However, even though Pi now established dominance over Richard Parker, he is still insignificant. “I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still” (Martel 177). In this quote, he realizes that even though he’s suffering now, all these things still mean nothing in comparison to all that’s around him like the moon, the bright stars, calm waters, and the vastness of the
ocean.
The protagonist, Pi is initially apprehensive to accept Richard Parker on the raft, but later comes to appreciate the tiger once he realizes this animal’s presence is crucial for his survival on the boat. First, Pi is scared and reluctant to accept his shadow self because it conflicts with his character and complicates his beliefs. This is evident when he says, “Together? We’ll be together? Have I gone mad? I woke up to what I was doing […]. Let go […] Richard Parker […] I don’t want you here […]. Get lost. Drown! Drown!!” (Martel 123). Though Pi recognizes his shadow self by encouraging Richard Parker to come on the boat, he soon realizes that he is about to accept his shadow self. He instantly regrets his decision and throws an oar at him in an effort to stop Richard Parker. His action symbolizes his denial and confusion he feels towards the extent of br...
...ction of Richard Parker kept Pi aware, by showing Pi the reality of the current situation, assisted him with making the right decisions, committing certain actions, and is his sub-consciousness, his id that fights for survival. In Martel’s Life of Pi, Pi’s coping mechanism has been proven more useful in his projection Richard Parker rather than his beliefs in his religions, which has done nothing for Pi and was useless at that time. Humans and animals are very alike in certain aspects. When it all comes down to survival, humans and animals are almost alike. The human mind brings back the inner id from the human consciousness while in drastic situations to help them cope with it in order to survive. The human psychology has a very interesting way of creating coping mechanisms.
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.
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
From the beginning of the novel it is pretty clear that religion is a major issue in the life of Pi Patel. “I have kept up what some people would consider my strange religious practices”(3). However, when the Christian and Islamic faiths are presented to him, he can’t decide which practice he wants to call his own. In fact, he wants to know why can’t he be all three of them. The reason Pi can’t decide on which religious practice he will be ultimately faithful to is because he notice so man similarities in the three of them. Mainly the Christian and Islamic practices. When asked why doesn’t he choose between the three he replies, “I just want to love God” (69). Be that as it may, his faith(s) are soon put to the ultimate test.
Soon after, at long last, he reaches land. He attains Enlightenment. The tiger bounds off into the jungle-- Pi's suffering is released completely. He is nursed back to health and lives a relative normal life, with the distinction that his experience has fully awakened him. He walks as a true adult among the many spiritual children of the world. He still has the normal problems, challenges, and disappointments of life; Enlightenment does not mean everything is perfect. But Pi can bring forth what is needed in each moment, and does not suffer from the pains, failures, and sorrows of being human. He lives through them without getting caught in them. (Similarly, he is fully awake for all the wonderful pleasures and intimacies of life. And in all occurrences, he brings a deep compassion and love for all beings).
In the novel, Pi doesn’t talk about Hinduism as much as Christianity. This could have challenged Pi whenever he was confronted with all three religions. In this novel, it is very well explained how people feel so much better about themselves with religion. “According to the Hindu religion, they believe that God isn’t far away. He is in their hearts and minds. They also believe that when one knows this, it gives them hope and courage” (Monastery). In the book, the connection would be that Pi felt hope and courage through his journey. Maybe, he wanted to impress God. Maybe, Pi wanted to make God proud so he could be welcomed into his arms on his last day. One of the main reasons Pi survived, was because he had faith the whole way. In Life of Pi, we don’t really know how Pi really felt on his 227 day journey. We could tell that nothing could stand in the way of him and his God.
Pi turns to God and says aloud, “‘Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die.’” (Martel, 148). Instead of giving up, he used a miracle that God gives him and turns it into a routine. His belief of God watching over him gave him a lot of motivation Pi explains his struggles when he says “You might think I lost all hope at one point. I did. And as a result, I perked up and felt much better. We see it in sports all the time don’t we?” (Martel 134). At this moment, Pi decides to disregard Richard Parker and focus on his thirst. He thinks back to how when Jesus was crucified, that his only complaint was thirst. This gave Pi a reason to help himself by letting go of his worrying. As he slowly becomes more depressed, Pi comes to the realization that “God’s hat was always unraveling. God’s pants were falling apart. God’s cat was a constant danger. God’s ark was a jail. God’s wide acres were slowly killing me. God’s ear didn’t seem to be listening.” (Martel, 209). Whenever Pi starts to upset about his situation, he yells about how everything symbolizes God. Although sometimes it did not help, Pi says that he will continue to hope and love
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,
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. He prayed and prayed as he believes that it is one of the keys to
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.
Through Pi’s strenuous experiences, He gains an understanding to balance his differing interests and learns that with both he is one. Pi is introduced to his inner strength as a result of the orangutan suffering. A close-up shot accentuates Pi’s change of facial expression to unwavering anger. The low angle shot reveals cloudy detecting pathetic fallacy as it resembles Pi’s empowerment and vexation. Pi’s battle between his morals and instincts are successfully demonstrated When Pi points a spear at Richard Parker with the accompaniment of a high angle shot. This shot successfully show Pi’s dominance in his changed behaviour toward Richard Parker, representative of Pi’s inner power for survival. This exemplifies Pi’s internal struggle to balance both his morals and primal instincts, in the process of discovering his holistic persona. Pi begins to gain an understanding of the tiger’s behaviour in a training scene between the two conflicting characters. the scene begins with high and low angle shots to depict the struggle and fight for power between Pi’s moral and his survival instincts. Eye level shots of both characters emphasise Pi’s discovery that he should not be in hostility with his own instincts but rather accepts it is apart of his being, thus discovering the truth of himself and his own
In addition, when Pi is in university and is introducing himself to each of his classes he uses repetition to explain his name. He says his name, writes it on the board, and underlines it. Pi uses ritual to get people in the habit of calling him Pi. This has significance to his past zoo life. Zoo animals need lots of care, this includes feedings, cleanings, and training. Pi is used to ritual, he knows that animals learn/live off of routine, and repetition, and so he has applied these skills to his classmates indicating a similarity between animals, and humans. Animals learn off of repetition, and routine, as do humans. Pi 's name has a mathematical link which has major symbolism to the entire novel. We all know that Pi is a large, and complicated number. Pi says in the novel, "That 's one thing I hate about my nickname, the way that number runs on forever." (Martel 316). I feel like the author included this quote to signify that Pi has been on a long journey, just like Pi says the numbers continue on. This quote was said towards the ending of the novel, and could represent the
First, Pi starts off his journey to redefine himself from the influence of others towards his name. Pi is in depression as the people around him, have changed him, “It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names” (Martel
The story begins in India where Pi's father owned a zoo. Zoology was one of Pi's passions along with religion. Pi had a very strong thirst for knowledge but he also had a hunger for God. In the book, Pi clearly showed his love for the many classical divisions of religion. He worshiped as a Hindu, Muslim, and a Christian. Pi's family laughed at Pi because they said that it was not possible to believe in that many different religions. Pi was very much against not having a belief at all. He thought that you should have to believe in something in order to get by in life. Pi's devotion to his belief in God was shown very well at the beginning of the story. His life changed drastically when his father decided to sell the zoo and move their family from India to Canada due to political unrest. His father sold the majority of the animals to zoos in America. They loaded their belongings and the animals onto a freight ship. Unfortunately, half way across the Pacific, the ship sank. Pi then found himself abandoned on a lifeboat with only a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker, a zebra, a hyena and an orangutan. He was faced with more physical needs than ever before and his faith and devotion to God wavered a bit. Pi always tried to remember his devotion during...