The Savagery in The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

In the book Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, the idea of the boundaries between savagery and humanity are tossed around quite a bit. In Pi’s life or death situation, the idea of savagery becomes a little obscured by the desperation to survive. There are several acts within the story that people who are not in Pi’s situation would possibly see as being savage. As I read the text, I see most of Pi’s actions as a need to survive. Pi creates the character of Richard Parker, who is portrayed as a Bengal tiger, to justify his incidents of savagery. It is through the different events in Life of Pi that the idea of savagery can be misconstrued and confused with the necessity to live.

Savagery by definition is the act of being uncivilized. The acts I consider to be savage are those committed by the cook on the first few days being on the lifeboat. “Yet there he was, swinging his arms and catching flies and eating them greedily. Right away he was in a holy terror for hunger” (Martel 304). After not being on the boat a full day, the cook is already showing signs of uncivilized manner by eating insects although there were food rations on the lifeboat. Eating flies when there is proper food to be eaten is not something that would be considered civilized. His actions are not done out of the necessity to live because there is food on board the lifeboat. If there had been no food available, the actions of the cook could be understood more as an action to survive the life or death situation. Not only was the cook eating flies like a savage, but he was also cutting up the other humans to use as bait for fishing. There is no need to already start filleting the sailor because there are still food rations available to the cook at ...

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...creates the character of Richard Parker to justify his actions that he considers to be savage. He even separates parts of the boat to use as a boundary between his idea of humanity and savagery. “It was time to impose myself and carve out my territory” (Martel 202). This part of the text implies to me that Pi is making the boundary between his humanity and his actions that he sees as savage. Richard Parker’s territory in the story is the bottom of the boat and under the tarpaulin. I see Richard Parker’s territory metaphorically as Pi’s savage side. Pi’s territory in his story is on top of the tarpaulin and on the raft, which I see metaphorically as the humane side of his personality. By making this separation, Pi is addressing the issue of what is savage and what is not within himself.

Work Cited

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2001.