Richard Parker In Life Of Pi

Forcefully torn away from his peaceful, pious life, the titular character of Life of Pi saw nothing but a sombre future in front of him. As a product of necessity a “small thing […] would transform itself and […] no longer be the small thing it was before, but the thing that would save [his] life” (154). This detail is the primal instinct to survive. This detail is Richard Parker. While he is an animal, representing fundamental behaviours, Piscine personifies the tiger in order to preserve more than his body: Richard Parker also manifests the resolve to remain psychologically intact. His tendency to anthropomorphise unveils that Pi’s hunger for survival extends further than physically: through interactions with Richard Parker, he satiates his

When Richard Parker begins speaking, Pi is “elated” and “filled with a vulgar curiosity, the sort that movie stars suffer from at the hands of their fans” (273). By humanising the tiger, Pi establishes a social hierarchy of sorts, as Richard Parker is now capable of having a system of values. Similar to scrutinising a celebrity, Pi attempts to reaffirm his conception of what he imagines Richard Parker to be: a self-interested brute. For the sake of holding on to his delusion that he is still mentally superior - still part of humanity - by its remaining sinews, Pi builds up his own behaviour as correct and proper. Planting these otherworldly, violent aspects of himself onto this fantastical persona allows the boy to view the deaths of the cook and the animals he kills from a falsely righteous perspective, as it puts distance between his guilt, his emotional investment and himself. Increased separation between his immorality dulls Pi’s pain of his descent into savagery, making himself feel worthy of respect and maintaining the fact that he wishes to retain his