Life Reflection In Life Of Pi, By Yann Martel

Another way Pi was able to survive through his harsh times was by learning how to live with Richard Parker. At first Pi was terribly afraid that he might be the next goat. “I had a choice so long as he did not sense me. If he did, he would kill me right away. Could he burst through the tarpaulin, I wondered.”(Martel, 119) Since Pi was afraid of Richard Parker, he would try his best to avoid him. His fear towards Richard Parker distracted Pi from the sorrow left by the sinking of the Tsimtsum. Even if Richard Parker was a man-eating carnivore he had to learn how to live with him. “In my case, to protect myself from Richard Parker while I trained him, I made a shield with a turtle shell...” (Martel, 228) If Pi wasn’t able to tame Richard Parker

Yann Martel`s Life of Pi follows A journey of a young man and a Bengal tiger as they travel across the ocean in a lifeboat.Director Ang lee made many consider the book to be beautiful,but virually unflimable.Being needed to told on screen Ang lee discerned very adeptly,about Life of Pi ‘’if there is will there is a way’’.

In Life of Pi, author Yann Martel utilizes metaphors to foreshadow future events and to reveal new insight about Pi’s character and the theme. When Pi is a young boy, his father teaches him and his brother why they should never put their hands in the animals’ cages. Pi’s father decides to teach them this valuable lesson by forcing his sons to watch a hungry tiger devour a vulnerable goat. Pi says, “I don’t know if I saw blood… or if i daubed it on later, in my memory, with a big brush” (39). As Pi tells two stories of the same event, it foreshadows the ending of the book where Pi tells news reporters two stories of his survival out at sea. This reveals that Pi is very creative and imaginative,

American poet May Sarton once said, "Everything I've ever written is to understand something, some idea, some emotion". This idea lends to understanding how the autobiographical story telling of Holden and Dave helps them achieve some semblance of therapy. Though “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” exists as an acknowledged memoir, Holden Caulfield still gives his story through a first person lens, making his story every ounce as autobiographical as Dave’s. Because the relationships that Dave and Holden cultivate over the course of their stories do not exist as entirely successful ones, it that makes the relationships they have with themselves all the more important. In an essay discussing the irony in “Catcher in the Rye”, author Privitera says, “The irony of Holden is that the harder he tries to keep his family and friends at arm’s length, the closer he comes to making unexpected discoveries about them and even himself.”

The will to live is a strong urge of survival that occurs when one’s life is threatened. The novel and film Life of Pi is about a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel who is lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean due to a shipwreck with a 450 pound Bengal Tiger. The theme that fits the novel and film the best is the will to live. The novel and film effectively prove the theme by using symbols to portray how badly Pi wants to live. Characterization also plays an important role in proving the theme as the novel and book show how Pi and his tiger have to change themselves to live. Cinematic techniques such as different types of camera angles are used as well to prove that the will to live is the essential theme in the film. In the novel, Yann Martel shows how the camera angles prove what they prove. The film and novel Life of Pi effectively capture the theme of the will to live by the effective use of symbolism, characterization, and cinematic techniques.

Humans generally face struggles in their lifetime. Such struggles could be within themselves or with someone or something else but commonly stem from some sort of opposition in lifestyle. In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, Pi’s passion for personal survival conflicts with his moral obligations to himself internally, morphing his external character.

When we are placed in situations of desperation, we often resort to other motives that we would normally categorize as inhumane in order to survive:“When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival,” (133). This becomes apparent to Pi when he does not feel any sympathy towards the zebra, after the ruthless attack from the hyena. Pi has trouble coping with this behaviour as it is going against values that defines him as a person: religion and his moral obligations. This willpower to survive often blocks our sense of empathy for one another and controls our mind and our hearts. Later in the chapter, the hyena has an opportunity to attack the orangutan, but does not. This relates to the idea that theses two opposites of moral and survival instincts can co exist together, such as the rhino and the goat. Ultimately, the symbolism of the two opposite natures coexisting with one another proves that nature is filled with surprises and the need for balance of cooperation and competition is essential to survive.

“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.” This mighty quote, plummets out of the novel Life of Pi. Its idea of the story that Yann Martel tells in this novel is of a journey that makes the story sound realistic. It’s undoubtful that only a master storyteller, like Yann Martel himself, could write such dominant and lifting quotes. Martel gives us the novel Life of Pi, which is a coming of age story about a young boy who reaches maturity through tragic, but uplifting loss and miraculous survival. The story, Life of Pi, is reflected apron on a wild journey that comes with many adventures, tragics, some laughs, and also survival.

Furthermore, his vast knowledge of animals, having grown up at a zoo, helps him to tame Richard Parker. Pi knows tigers’ psychological thinking and exploits this by classically conditioning Richard Parker. Likewise, Pi’s experience of watching a tiger kill a goat in his early childhood taught him the fundamental lesson that ‘an animal is an animal’, enabling him to strategically and mentally survive his long and testing time at sea. In addition to that, during the early parts of Part 2, Pi comes across a survival manual, a crucial object for his continued existence. The book gives him critical information on the do’s and don’ts of survival at sea and it is hard to imagine that Pi could have survived without this book which also gave him the opportunity to write down his words which were “all he has left’’.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was one of America’s first romantic writers and his writings are still quite popular today. One of Hawthorne’s most popular short stories include the writing of “Young Goodman Brown.” What makes Hawthorne so progressive in today’s literary world is the fact that he makes a smooth transition from symbolism to allegory in his writings. Edgar Allan Poe uses a more gothic style of writing that gives his science fiction literature unique character. One of Poe’s more popular stories is “The Fall of the House of Usher” in which he uses deep symbolism and imagery to tell the story. Although both short stories portray critical use of allegory and symbolism, it is based upon opinion as to which story is the more superior. “Young Goodman Brown” is more superior because of its detailed characters, better use of literally techniques and deeper themes.

On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which

Life of Pi shows that humans and animals should do anything necessary to survive whatever challenges they face to live instead of just accepting death. Whatever ways that help one to survive are necessary, even if they compromise personal values, are vicious, or are wicked. Pi, a human; a hyena, and a blind man all fight to survive in a variety of ways that are examples of this thesis.

Pi contacted with animals when he was very young. Therefore, when he was in trouble and afraid to solve the problem, his savagery will help him. “We fight to the very end. It’s not a question of courage. Its something constitutional, and inability to let go. It maybe nothing more than life-hungry stupidity. Richard Parker started growing that very instant as if he had been waiting for me to become a worthy opponent. My chest became tight with fear”( Martel p.187). Pi finally chose to face the tiger, and save himself. He did not choose to stay until the tiger eats him. Even if he knows that it’s difficult to survive, he did not give up. Pi stayed with animals when he was a child. His curiosity made him have a great interest in animals. He might learn something from the wild animals. Moreover, if animals did something very cruel and their behavior will probably leave a deep impression about those things in Pi’s mind. Therefore, Pi’s savagery leads him to have the determination to against the tiger, Richard

“Survival is the ability to swim in strange water” (Frank Herbert). Pi demonstrated life on the Pacific as a test of all aspects. Life on the Pacific tested his physical endurance, he was lost for two-hundred and seventy seven days. In that time, Pi demonstrates his faith towards God, himself, and Richard Parker. Pi develops a robust bond with Richard Parker, then connecting spiritually. Survival in the novel Life of Pi is etched in the deepest parts of the story. These aspects of the novel are depicted through personal and self-reflection within himself. Pi survives because of his strength, faith and a close relationship with Richard Parker.

The saying “desperate times call for desperate measures” holds truth to an extent. In the award winning novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, drastic measures are taken by characters in order to survive while stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. Through his journey, main character, Pi Patel, endures many hardships and witnesses several deaths. Significantly, the death of the zebra accompanying Pi and the other animals establishes a generalization of human nature being sophisticated yet inherently vicious according to methods of survival.