“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” Certainly, the Life of Pi novel by Yann Martel describes the fears, religious struggles, and most importantly, growth of Pi Patel in one such year of struggle, as noted by Sigmund Freud. In Life of Pi, a boy tells two accounts of his isolation at sea on a lifeboat. In one of his versions of the story, Pi is on the lifeboat with a zebra, hyena, orangutan, and a tiger. In the other version, he is trapped with his mother, the cook of the ship that sunk, and a sailor on the ship who died on the lifeboat and was eaten by the cook. During both accounts, Pi struggles with his views on God and morality, as well as his fears, which he learns to overcome as his experiences …show more content…
In Pi’s story with the animals, there was a time that he needed to kill a fish to survive. Although killing a sentient being was appalling and contradictory to Pi’s moral standards (Martel, 183), he realized that if he didn’t kill it, he would die. He knew that in order to survive, he needed to suppress part of his superego and let a small part of his id out. He knew it was a necessary evil, and matured by learning to understand how to properly control his good and evil sides. Pi must also keep hold of his evil side too in his second account. The cook decided to kill the sailor and cannibalize him to survive. Pi and his mother knew that however hungry they became, they could not eat even the smallest part of the sailor (Martel, 308). To make up for this lost energy, however, they had to accept eating raw fish and raw turtle, despite their disgust. Pi knew that it would be a horrible atrocity to eat the sailor out of animal impulse, even if he was starving; however, he knew that he had to kill and eat something to survive, whether killing was wrong or not. Pi decided that the best balance of this was to eat fish. His maturing character balanced out these good and evil aspects of himself to express his ego, his proper expression of the id and
In Life of Pi, his long journey and ardent will to stay alive can alone discribe pi’s transformation from a confused and sheltered boy, into a young man who is now mentally broke but somehow uses his psychological experience to strengthen himself. Pi’s spirituality and religion pushes the reader to shift its perspective.
Have you ever been in a life or death situation? If you have; then you know two sides of you come out. The positive and negative or the happy and evil. In the story Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, Pi ends up stranded in the ocean for 227 days with a tiger. He makes decisions throughout his journey on the lifeboat that affect his survival. Pi, lives with his evil side and during the journey his evil side shows through as much as his good side. When people strive for survival in life or death circumstances, they must compromise their values and come to terms with their inner evil.
Humans have diverse habits of coping with difficulties. In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, Pi, after having endured unimaginable circumstances, fabricates an alternate story to the original. However, the outcomes of both stories are the same; the Tsimtsum sinks, Pi's family dies, and Pi survives. As a way of coping with the tragedies he has endured, Pi creates a different story which expresses the characters prodigiously, all the while inhibiting his suffering and freeing him from his survival instincts.
Everyone must learn to overcome, or acclimate to fear. It is an unavoidable part of life. People do not usually address all of their fears at one time, but occasionally, unlikely situations occur. In Life Of Pi, by Yann Martel, Piscine (Pi) Patel overcomes many fears, in a slight 227 days aboard a lifeboat, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He and his family are in the process of moving, when the Tsimtsum, the boat they are boarding, mysteriously sinks. Pi is the only survivor, along with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger. Although many themes are present, the most prominent through the whole book is learning to live with and overcome the very thing that causes the most grief, the most anxiety, and a lot of reflection; Fear.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is the story of a young man who survives a painful, terrifying shipwreck and months in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The book describes Piscine (Pi) Patel’s life and harrowing journeys after the shipwreck that took the lives of many people immigrating to Canada, including his own mother and countless animals from the family’s zoo. Pi must survive on a small lifeboat with a hungry predator. This journey of 227 days changes the way he sees the world, and it just might change the reader’s view too. “This is a novel that will make you believe in God.” - New York Times
Pi’s resourcefulness during his journey led him to survival. When he had gotten shipwrecked, he uses life-jackets to build a raft to keep him afloat. He even managed to salvage Richard Parker, who helps relieve Pi of his anxiety. He concentrates his effort on training, feeding, providing for, and working with Richard Parker is the main reason what helps him to be focused, which is what eventually saves his life. He’s even able to adapt easily to his surroundings by making these pragmatic decisions. One decision that he had to make was to kill his first fish, even though killing animals goes against his morals of being a vegetarian. “You may be astonished that in a short period of time I could go from weeping over the muffled killing of a fish to gleefully bludgeoning to death a dorado. I could explain it by arguing that profiting from a pitiful flying fish’s navigational mistake made me shy and sorrowful, while the excitement of actively capturing a great dorado
Experience is an essential element that benefits an individual’s ability to improve throughout their life. But this essential feature of human life is dependant upon yet another distinct element; change. Change is the driving force behind experience that provides an individual the ability to adapt to new situations. In the novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the idea of change and adaptation arises when Pi is faced with difficult situations throughout his life. Pi, Piscine Molitor Patel, was full of curiosity when he grew up learning about various animals at the Pondicherry Zoo and also practicing different religions. As political issues arise in the city of Pondicherry, his family decides to sell the Zoo and move to Canada. This decision becomes unfortunate when Pi loses his family in a shipwreck on course to Canada. Pi and four animals are the only ones that survive the shipwreck and end up in a lifeboat. Pi goes through this immense change and now must adapt to the situation. An individual must adapt to adverse circumstances
Isolation acts as a good method to collect thoughts and sort out complex situations. However, Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi, writes about isolation from a different perspective. Piscine Molitor Patel, a sixteen year old boy, experiences hardships which shows how easily change occurs. The book takes place on a stranded lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Pi must live with no human contact besides an adult Bengal Tiger.
When faced with traumatic circumstances and events, each individual develops their own personal ways to cope. Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, is a fictional adventure novel that follows the expeditions of a castaway and a Bengal tiger. In Life of Pi, Piscine (Pi) Patel subconsciously translates his story into one that aids him in coping with recent events. He begins to parallel human characters with the animals that personify them; each illusion stemming from his very own past experiences.
This article, consider the entire story of pi as a big test, the main character pi is placed in a life or death situation which tests his faith and morality, the story is about choice and decision making, pi was forced to give up his morality in order to survive.
In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, Piscine “Pi” Patel goes on a journey that tests him in unimaginable ways. As Pi tells the story of his life, the reader is shown the battle that Pi faces and the settings they take place in. Martel specifically uses the setting of the lifeboat, island and Pi’s home to reflect Pi’s inner self.
The Life of Pi is a story that tells of a young boy who is full of life and faith, a boy who is Christian, Hindu and Muslim. But after a shipwreck, he is abandoned on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, an orangutan, a zebra and a hyena. As the journey unfolds, Pi is faced with many threats and challenges. Pi ends up drifting alone with no direction through the Pacific Ocean with the Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. In Life of Pi, Pi's constant challenges change him from a naive boy to a troubled teenager and then slowly into a survivor.
The fiction story, Life of Pi, displays a relationship between a youthful boy and faith. The book, written by the Spanish author Yann Martel, depicts the arduous and crucial journey of a young, religious boy. Named Piscine Molitor Patel, often referred as Pi, he encounters a dilemma regarding his spirituality. The text consists of three parts that take place in entirely different places: the first one in his hometown; Pondicherry, the second one stranded on the Pacific Ocean with Richard Parker, the ferocious tiger, and the third one in America, where he lives the rest of his life. The author interlocks Pi’s actual life to the three parts to give an understanding of his beliefs. Accordingly, he mere point in this story is how significant is faith in defining and shaping a person, in this
In Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, a boy named Piscine Patel, known to many as Pi, finds himself trapped on a small lifeboat with animals after he evacuates a sinking ship. The ship was used for transporting himself, his family, and the animals from the family’s zoo to Canada. Yann Martel uses the literary devices characterization, setting and imagery to highlight the theme the will to live during Pi’s voyage in hope surviving. Piscine Patel is characterized as someone who takes good care of their body as he heads to diner.
In his famous novel, Life of Pi, Yann Martel uses multiple voices to make the story have as much verisimilitude as possible. Just as other contemporary authors, he uses the effect of different narrative points to his advantage. In Life of Pi, Piscine Patel describes his struggle of living on a lifeboat while he learns to survive and uses his knowledge and love of God to give him hope. Yann Martel’s use of multiple voices works well to provide the reader with a better understanding of the story. Yann Martel’s first narrator gives the story a sense of verisimilitude and creates an illusion for readers to decode.