Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

In the novel, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the author makes use of the scene of the ocean as a way to develop a sense of being lost. This along with the pressing need to survive by any means necessary is the theme of the book as well as the message received by the way the author wrote the novel. The events of the novel thereby underscore the instinctual need to survive, regardless of circumstance.
This need to survive extends even into the narrator, Pi’s, childhood and serves as proof that the desire to be comfortable is connected with the desire to survive, no matter how minor it is given his age. His interaction with the children of his school, regardless of how relatively minor the situation may be, reflects a desire to be comfortable with the situation he finds himself in. Which is proven by how he renamed himself, “And so, in that Greek letter

This willingness to give something up is telling with regards to his life an how far he is willing to go to be comfortable with the situation he is faced with. Which leads to the experience he had with the tiger of his parent’s zoo, how the will to survive, even amongst animals, is strong. Even against the threat of certain death they still fight to survive. “The goat started to jump. It jumped to amazing heights. I had no idea a goat could jump so high. But the back of the cage was a high and smooth cement wall,” thereby proving that one will wish to survive, even in a hopeless situation where survival is impossible (Martel 35). This will to survive is further developed by the instinctual fear of a predator, as well as the unknown, which neither animal or human like. The risk that it represents along with the lack of knowledge they have of it compels them both, human and animal alike, to stay away from it. Like the animals that escape from zoos, “animals that escape go from the known into the unknown - and if there