Sixteen-year-old Pi Patel is in a lifeboat surrounded by endless ocean with his sole companion, a daunting Bengal tiger. These unlikely comrades share the common struggle for survival and quickly become co-dependent. In the Life of Pi, Yann Martel paints a beautiful story of an unlikely human-animal relationship that proves how similar the two truly endure agony. Pi’s tactics of intimidation, structure, and ability to render his memories save him from death. Pi understands the crippling affect fear and social insecurity have on people and applies it when training Richard Parker. At first, the deaths of the hyena, zebra, and orangutan overwhelm Pi causing him to act in a “fight-or-flight” mode. He acts on his fear of death which causes him to make erratic decisions and wait for the elements to save him. Though this near-death experience he better understands the power of fear. Pi describes fear as “life’s only true opponent” (Martel …show more content…
Richard Parker is the animal-eating side of Pi, yet it manifests into a Bengal tiger. This is Pi’s way of forgetting his decent into savagery. On multiple occurrences, Pi says one “can get used to anything” (Martel 281). As a devout vegetarian, the thought of eating another creature never crosses Pi’s mind until he must do it for survival. The action is unforgivable to Pi. Yet, on the boat he drinks turtle blood and eats fish heads and animal fat biscuits. After surviving, Pi forces these choices out of his mind. Another mind trick Pi plays, is with time. He realizes he will be on the boat for days, so he throws away the idea of time. Pi describes this tactic when he says that “time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time” (Martel 242). This allows him to dwell in the beautiful moments longer and fight boredom. Mental strength is Pi’s greatest ally. The fudged truth only benefits his
...knowledge his shadow self. He was able to survive his plight on the lifeboat because of the characteristics of his shadow self, Richard Parker. Even at the loss of his shadow self, Pi remains connected and constantly misses this part of his persona. After his ordeal on the lifeboat, Pi becomes rational and humane; however his experiences has scarred him, and will forever remain with him. Readers can definitely learn from Pi’s experience with his shadow self. The more we refute our shadow, the more it weighs us down. However, if we are willing to come to terms with the reality of our shadow, learn how it works, “tame” it so that it does not control us, we would be more literate and enlightened.
The experience Pi had on the lifeboat was horrible and was not a good time for him. His family, Richard Parker and orange juice which he all loved very much all left him in some way. He starved from hunger, became partially blind and physical suffered so much that he would never forget it. Last but not least, this entire experience traumatized Pi with the ship wreck, Richard Parker killing a human and the way he hoarded food traumatized him. How could all that Pi went through sound like a happy ending when he lost so much of himself throughout his
The most dangerous fear that Pi deals with is Richard Parker who has no mercy on his victims. Pi knows that he should deal with Richard Parker in a small damaged lifeboat. He can't run away from his fears, so he makes a border between Richard Parker and himself. Pi says, " I started thinking seriously about how I was going to deal with Richard Parker. This forbearance on his part on hot, cloudless days, that is what it was and not simple laziness, was not good enough. I couldn't always be running away from him. I needed safe access to the locker and to the top of the tarpaulin, no matter on what time of day or the weather and no matter of his mood. It was rights that I needed, the sort of rights that come with the might. It was time to impose myself and carve out territory," (Martel, 224). If one runs away from self-fears, the person will not achieve the goals for which Pi is no different. Despair has had the most destructive effect on Pi that has really stopped him to try rescue him. The only factor that forces despair to diminish is taking practical steps. Pi could survive 227 days on the lifeboat with faith. He reminds himself everything in this world is a creature of God. He says, " Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression. I thank God it always passed. A school of fish appeared around the net or a knot cried out to be reknotted. Or I thought of my family, of how they were spared this terrible agony. The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of high in your heart.
An id and ego split is also shown between Pi and Richard Parker. Richard Parker is an imaginary tiger that is created by Pi in order to keep him alive and focused on staying alive. Pi eventually abandons his superego and partakes in eating meat, even though he was a strict vegetarian prior to being lost at sea. Over the duration of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the story relates to Freud’s theories in several ways that are made blatantly obvious; these relations are what makes this story come together to keep the reader involved and interested. Works Cited Martel, Yann.
...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.
Within the text, Life of Pi, the narrator, Pi had always been drawn towards the tiger, Richard Parker, throughout his entire childhood, even during hardships, where Pi’s life was in danger. This can be evident when Pi talks about the importance of the tiger, “ Richard Parker has stayed with me. I’ve never forgotten him. Dare say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart.” (pg. 14). This shows that Pi considers Richard Parker to be part of his family, side from all the loss and grief he has experienced throughout his journey, even though he is a tiger. Unlike, Life of Pi, the poem illustrates tigers through dark and negative light and pursue these creatures as evil figures that are the result of the higher power. This idea can be pictured through the focal point of the poem, through the use of sensationalism.” What dread grasp. Dare its deadly terrors clasp?”. Through the use of this persuasive technique, the poet, continuously raises questions to the higher power, as to why he could possibly create such horror. Both tigers are powerful creations that are an animal at the end of the day and is savage when it comes to
Pi gets over his fear of Richard Parker, because the need to survive is far stronger than is fear of the tiger. Pi realizes that fear and panic are useless, and that his will to live is stronger than those feelings of fear and
He also realizes that continuing his strict vegetarian diet will not give him the sufficient amount of nutrients needed for survival. Pi ultimately has to resort to eating meat. Eating the fish was not the problem, killing the fish is what stood strictly against his morals. Pi states, “ I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I have ever killed. I was now a killer[…] I never forgot to include this fish in my prayers”(Martel 183). It is clearly shown that killing went against what Pi stood for. Pi states how “He will never forget this fish in his Prayers”(Martel 183), which is quite symbolic in that he would never forget that first fish. After this event, Pi killed many other sea creatures, but the first fish he killed was the largest sin he had. He felt the need to constantly pray to his Gods for a sense of relief for committing his sins. Pi quickly adapts to his new lifestyle of eating meat. Even though his morals see this as wrong, he quickly realizes that it is necessary for survival. “It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing”(Martel 185). Understanding that killing
It is not unlikely that in severe circumstances, humans use the company of one another to survive. For example, in Night, Elie Wiesel uses his father to motivate him to live during his terrifying stay at Auschwitz. However, not all cases of this “survival relationship” necessarily involve two humans. In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, when he is shipwrecked at sea for 227 days, Pi Patel faces life-threatening circumstances every minute of the day. After his rescue,though, he tells two different stories to explain this incredulous journey. One involves loneliness and brutality,while the other involves animals and faith, the latter being the true story. Pi’s explanation involving animals is the true story because it vividly and descriptively displays
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).
He warns us of the dangers of our savagery due to its ability to overtake our rationality and suddenly normalise itself into our lives. Furthermore, Pi says, “I ate like an animal, that this noisy, frantically, unchewing wolfing down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate.” The parallel structure in the listing gives the sense that every aspect of Pi has been altered to become like an animal. Richard Parker, the tiger, symbolises the animalistic savagery within Pi. As Pi becomes more similar to Richard Parker, the author conveys how he conforms more to his inner savagery, replacing the civilised Pi in
He prayed and prayed as he believes that it is one of the keys to Pi survived because he was faithful. One of the factors that made him survive was by praying. He had a daily ritual, to pray five times a day, which is a ritual in Islam. He considered this just as important as survival preparations. “My heart stopped and then beat triple speed.
Pi’s challenge to survive unconquerable circumstances is conveyed through Martel’s use of symbolism. Within majority of the novel, Pi and Richard Parker are aboard the lifeboat and face a multitude of hardships throughout their journey, with the most obvious being their struggle to survive 227 days floating upon the Pacific Ocean.
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.
Adversity has the effect of evoking abilities which, in booming circumstances, would have lain dormant. Through adversity we come to see ourselves grow and advance as individuals, and realize our true potential. In retrospect, we see Pi overcoming fear and loss and realizing what he is capable of and his potential as one of God's disciples. Adversity brings out the finest in people, the most magnifcant qualities and abilities that a person can possess. Yann Martel expresses through this writing that people fall victim to adversity all the time, but our understanding for different situations makes us able to determine our capabilities as individuals. Pi has many potential talents and abilities that he just hasn't uncovered yet and could use to survive. Throughout the novel Pi goes through many life changing experiences, overcomes many obstacles and pushes his limits. Like when Pi catches the fish and kills it for the first time. He's hesitant and begins to fret over it, but he soon comes to realize that in order for him to survive he has...