Life Of Pi Theme Essay Examples

Pi is alone with Richard Parker on the lifeboat and they both starve and suffer with dehydration. Pi starts catching fishes for both of them. He always gives the biggest share to Richard Parker as he is the strongest. One day, he decides to eat the largest part. He wants to calm his desire for hunger. He does not want to share anything with Richard Parker. Pi starts eating like an animal. Pi tells, “It came as an unmistakable indication to me of how I had sunk the day I noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that I ate like an animal” (Martel 183). The innocent boy is now as dangerous as an animal that can do anything for the food. His yearning for food makes him selfish. It is in pi’s hand not to sacrifices his integrity, but he chooses to sacrifice because he knows that at this critical situation it is right to do. Even though Pi loses his integrity, he gains the power of being the strongest one on the

Pi faces a very extreme environment and a very extreme situation when he had to keep the tiger alive. According to the text, “I was alone and orphaned, in the middle of the Pacific”, which was his only companion in the middle of the ocean on the lifeboat, to survive.(page 79) In the situation, even under the extreme circumstances Pi stays cool and collected and focus’ only on survival. With the mentality to survive, and wanting to end the pain of thirst, “I think it was this that saved my life that morning, that I was quite literally dying of thirst”(page 81), Pi decided that his life wasn’t going to end now. He

As Pi has to fight through adversity when he is stranded in a the middle of the Pacific Ocean, he has to adjust his eating habits. When one is in a situation where there is not much to eat, any little thing must be consumed. As a very famous proverb says, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” This was Pi’s most difficult challenge when he was on the boat. As a child, Pi grew up to be a vegetarian. The idea of killing and then consuming an animal really freaked out Pi. He remembered from his childhood, “To think that when I was a child I always shuddered when I snapped open a banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of an animal's neck” (197). Even when Pi was eating something like a banana that is not related at all to an animal, he

As he identifies with the probable pain that the fish he has caught is going to suffer, he cannot bring himself to slaughter it, “I imagined what it would feel like if I were wrapped in a blanket and someone were trying to break my neck. I was appalled. I gave up a number of times” (183). This identification clearly makes Pi hesitate in killing the fish, as he puts himself in the place of the fish and what it might feel like to have someone “trying to break” his neck. It is an imaginative act, as Pi must have the capacity to imagine how another being will feel, in a situation which he has not

Even after he kills a fish in a seemingly careless fashion, in his sleep “[his] mind lit up by the…flickering of the dying [fish]” seems to haunt him with resentment (Martel 186). This subconscious image is a product of Pi’s internal conflict with his new methods of survival. Therefore, Pi is unable to completely eliminate his feelings while trying to survive due to his torn thoughts between morality and necessity.

“It came as an unmistakable indication to me of how low I had sunk… I ate like an animal, that this noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate” (Martel 225). Richard Parker not only represented Pi's savage side, Richard Parker was Pi's only friend. When it came time for their goodbye it hurt Pi emotionally more than anything else in the story did. “Then Richard Parker, companion of my torment… disappeared forever from my life… I wept like a child… Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously. What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell”

In the story, Richard Parker illustrates Pi’s ferocious, killing machine side, and then Pi being ‘Pi’ when he was acting humane and civilized enough to fit the standards he has set for himself. For example, near the end of the novel when Pi is speaking to the Japanese interviewers about his 'other story', Mr. Chiba figures out that "[Pi] is the tiger" (Martel 173). The fact that Pi does not deny the statement lets the reader know that Richard Parker has symbolically been Pi throughout the entire novel. It also is quite shocking when the reader finally figures out that all of the inhumane things that Richard Parker did in the novel, was really Pi. For a more specific example, in Pi’s first story he tells the reader how Richard Parker killed the hyena, “…Without a sound…” and how the hyena “…did not put up a fight…” (Martel 82). Similarly, Pi plainly tells how the cook virtually allowed Pi to murder him, “He gave up. He let himself be killed…” (Martel 172). The similarity between the two stories is so significant that it is effortless to conclude that the two victims and the two murders, were the same people. Since Pi’s first story with all the animals is too far-fetched to believe, the second one must be the absolute yet bone-chilling truth. In other words, the hyena is symbolically the cannibalistic chef and Richard Parker is Pi. Hence, the whole human race, like

Richard Parker, the tiger, is a symbol of Pi himself. Pi directly correlates himself with Richard Parker. If Richard Parker “give[s] up” (121) then Pi is giving up. When swimming toward the life boat Richard Parker “look[s] small and helpless” (121) much like Pi actually is. Next to the tiger, zebra, and hyena Pi is small and feeble; he has no way to defend himself against the other animals. Pi egging Richard Parker on, toward the boat; “keep[ing him] swimming” (122) shows Pi’s resilience for survival; determined for Richard Parker to survive, which is actually his determination to survive. It is often mistaken in the novel as to whether Pi is speaking of himself or of Richard Parker because they could be the same being.

At the beginning of the novel Pi finds himself stranded on the Pacific Ocean after the ship he and his family were on sank with nothing but his beliefs, a lifeboat, a survivor’s manual, and a tiger he calls Richard Parker. Throughout the novel Pi is in a constant struggle with both his humanity and what he needs to do to survive. He learns of the cruel survival instincts within himself that he never thought possible. At the beginning of the novel Pi was nothing more than a boy who only saw the good in the world and in humanity. By the end of the novel, however, he becomes a man who has had to face things that no person should ever have to face alone even if one believes in

It can be noticed that Pi and Richard Parker were finally on less aggressive terms which symbolized Pi starting to accept that he had to start living with the hate and his demoralizing decisions or the hate/tiger will consume him from the inside out. Pi’s imagination of Richard Parker served as a sanity check so that Pi wouldn’t be self consumed by his demoralizing and hatred factors. Richard Parker’s creation was Pi’s goal to keep his humanity and beliefs in god apart from his other inhuman half created as a result of surviving instincts. Eventually these two parallel roadways merged into one person which resulted in Pi at the end of the book reflecting upon his journey across the ocean and stating,” And so it goes with God.”(pg.399). His last significant quote of the novel is explained when the two writers chose the version of the story where the Pi survived on a lifeboat with animals rather than the humans.

During this part of the novel, Pi’s father is teaching him a lesson by letting a tiger brutally kill a goat right in front of him. He is trying to teach Pi to not go near an animal such as tigers because they are incredibly dangerous. I believe this thread represents the foreshadowing of what is to come for Pi.

Though Richard Parker is quite fearsome, ironically his presence helps Pi stay alive. Alone on the lifeboat, Pi has many issues to face in addition to the tiger onboard: lack of food and water, predatory marine life, treacherous sea currents, and exposure to the elements. Overwhelmed by the circumstances and terrified of dying, Pi becomes distraught and unable to take action. However, he soon realizes that his most immediate threat is Richard Parker. His other problems now temporarily forgotten, Pi manages, through several training exercises, to dominate Parker. This success gives him confidence, making his other obstacles seem less insurmountable. Renewed, Pi is able to take concrete steps toward ensuring his continued existence: searching for food and keeping himself motivated. Caring and providing for Richard Parker keeps Pi busy and passes the time. Without Richard Parker to challenge and distract him, Pi might have given up on life. After he washes up on land in Mexico, he thanks the tiger for

THE WILL TO LIVE-life of pi is a story about struggling to survive through incredible odds.The shipwrecked survivors face controversy.Pi abandons his life-long vegetarianism by eating fish to survive.This caused pi to decide what kind of actions are acceptable in life or death

Pi’s inner struggle with his religion and morals vs his survival instinct is symbolized by Richard Parker. This can be exemplified as Pi expresses, “It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness” (Martel 179). Richard Parker is a Bengal tiger that is a constant threat in Pi’s life. Although, he eventually provided Pi with rich companionship and calmed him down. Pi takes a major sorrow and turns it into a spiritual gift. Pi believes that God who has a very forbidding presence, can bring peace, wholeness and many other happy things. In Yann Martel’s interview he states, “The more you know about an animal, the more you understand them” (insert citation). Initially, Pi feared Richard Parker, but he is forced to find a way to

The character of Richard Parker helps Pi cope with killing other animals, an act Pi has opposed all his life. The imaginary character of Richard Parker also helps Pi stay sane after taking another human’s life. In Pi’s alternate story, Pi murders the cook who had killed Pi’s mother, which is reflected in Pi’s original story with Richard Parker and the hyena. It is only after the entire ordeal that Pi can recount this horrible event with factual accuracy. Without the presence of Richard Parker, experiencing the death of his mother followed by the murder of another human being, it is extremely likely that Pi would have gone