Richard Parker's Faith In Life Of Pi

The alternate account places Pi on the life boat with a sailor, his mother, and the cook. The Sailor with the broken leg is killed by the Cook for fish bait apparently. The cook then begins to eat the strips that he made for this fish bait, first sneakily then when Pi’s mother discovers this she calls him out on it he openly ate the man. Both Pi and Pi’s mother are disgusted, and she fights with the Cook. Eventually, the argument flares up and Pi’s mother tells him to get off the raft, so he did so and when he did the Cook stabbed his mother repeatedly until she was dead. After this, time passes and Pi eventually builds up enough courage to grab the knife and get ready to kill the Cook. However, when he does so the Cook just lays there seemingly

This is an example of the second source being proven, because I doubt that Pi actually met another person out on a boat on the ocean who is blind. “…that it was Pi’s faith in religious tales that helped him to keep his sanity and cope with what actually occurred on the lifeboat” (Source B). The man who is blind who Pi meets has a French accent and Pi first thinks this is Richard Parker. The reasoning behind this is that the other person admits that he did kill two people, and Richard Parker is a tiger who did eat people. Another reason is the recipes and outlandish dishes that he wouldn’t have even thought people would have eaten, “‘Brain soufflé!’ ‘I’m feeling sick. Is there anything you won’t eat?’” (Martel 245). What’s interesting is the accent given to Richard Parker. It’s a French accent, which to most readers, is just a character building detail, but in actual fact it can be noted that the cook who killed two people, was also French. What can also be noted is that this could very be Pi’s self-consciousness feeling the guilt of killing another human being. But then not only killing him, but eating him after. This sense of right and wrong beginning to take over Pi is a major point in the story. Pi is beginning to give up on himself for his past mistakes and doesn’t want to live with them, and so he dangerously begins to walk the line between life and death. It is here at Pi’s most weak moment that the other survivor, who might also be the portrayal of the cook in Pi’s mind, attacks. Instinctively Richard Parker slays the man where he stands, killing the guilt and in other words telling Pi to keep living despite all the