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The Challenges in Yann Martel's Life of Pi Essay
How does author yann martel use symbolism to develop a theme in the novel life of pi
The Challenges in Yann Martel's Life of Pi Essay
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Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, is a fictional novel written in 2001 that explores the primacy of survival by employing symbolism, foreshadowing and motifs. This story follows the life of the protagonist, Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, as he embarks on his journey as a castaway. After boarding the Tsimtsum which carries Pi and his family along with a menagerie of animals, an abysmal storm capsizes the ship leaving Pi as the only survivor, though he is not alone. The great Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, also survives the shipwreck and during the 227 days that Pi and Richard Parker are stranded at sea together, the two must learn to coexist and trust one another for survival. Through Pi and Richard Parker’s struggles to remain alive, Martel explores the primal idea of survival by employing literary techniques.
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.
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With the lifeboat symbolising faith and Richard Parker as Pi’s primal instinct, Martel depicts Pi’s prolonged fight for survival as assuming the behaviour of a tiger allows him to endure the voyage. By foreshadowing Pi’s tense relationship with a tiger and the tragic sinking of the ship, the audience speculates that Pi will persevere, despite his unfortunate circumstances. Lastly, the recurring motif of food, water and territory requires both castaways to respect and depend on each other for their survival. Through the literary techniques of symbolism, foreshadowing and motifs, Martel enables the audience to explore the central theme of survival as they too experience being a castaway in the Pacific Ocean through Pi’s life
Stranded for 227 days at sea in a lifeboat, with no one else except an adult Bengal tiger. This is exactly what the main character Pi, in "The Life of Pi" went through. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel is a story about a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel, an Indian boy who survives more than seven months floating on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean, with no one else but a 450-pound tiger (Cooper). Yann Martel was born on June 25, 1963, in Salamanca, Spain. His parents, Emile Martel and Nicole Perron, were both born in Canada. He spent his childhood in several different countries, including France, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica. As an adult, he lived in many other places but one of them was India, which may be where he got inspiration for writing “Life of Pi”. Yann Martel uses the literary elements similes and foreshadowing, to express the theme that believing in religion can give you the faith to want to survive.
In brief, the three scenes discussed above are illustrations of the compunction the two Macbeths are equally afflicted with after they preside over the murders of their king, a close friend, and an entire innocent family. Neither one was expecting such a strong impact on their minds, but neither could hide from their guilty consciences after the fact. Inevitably, Lady Macbeth is overcome with despair and commits suicide, not surprising given her poor, ravaged mind. Macbeth, too, seems to succumb to his inexorable destiny by Macduff’s sword, solidifying the pervasive theme that unchecked ambition must lead to an unpleasant end.
Martel introduces multiple implicit symbols throughout his novel that, though are able to be interpreted in multiple ways depending on one’s perspective, highlight the importance of religion. When confronted with the ferocity of tiger aboard his lifeboat, Pi must flee to his raft handcrafted with remnants of life jackets and oars gathered from the boat. This raft may be symbolically interpreted as a representation of his faith throughout his journey. After a dauntless attempt at training Richard Parker in order to “carve out” his territory, Pi is knocked off the lifeboat into shark infested waters with a great blow: “I swam for the raft in frantic strokes... I reached the raft, let out all the rope and sat with my arms wrapped around my knees and my head down, trying to put out the fire of fear that was blazing within me. I stayed on the raft for the rest of the day and the whole night” (Martel 228). Like the raft, Pi’s faith, constructed of portions of three separate religions, trails diligently behind his survival needs and instincts –symbolized by Richard Parker and the...
Skepticism of fiction and acceptance of fact, the two most common responses to Pi’s story, are important in determining if fiction can be applied to a factual world to convey its truth. After Pi’s 227-day journey, he is interviewed by Japanese officials about his survival. The malnourished teenager tells two survival stories to the questioning men. The first is the bulk of the novel’s text, and it is about Pi’s Pacific journey with Richard Parker and the other animals. The fantastical, magical nature and unlikely coincidences that occur in this version of Pi’s story make it difficult for the Japanese men interviewing Pi to believe his story.
The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a fantastical work in which the main character, Pi, who is the son of a zoo owner in India, recounts the story of how he was stranded at sea in a lifeboat with a zebra, orangutan, hyena, and a large carnivorous tiger. Having been around animals his whole life, the lead protagonist, Pi, presents anthropomorphism in the early stages of the novel. Through anthropomorphism and magical realism we are provided with the fantastical side of Pi’s journey.
Literary critics have found similarities between the novel Life of Pi, and the film The Old Man and the sea. These notions have proved to be true as I have also found three key elements that are present in both novel and film. Loneliness, Perseverance, and feelings of hate that quickly turn to feelings of respect, are all very important elements that can be found in either stories. Pi and the Cuban fisherman face very similar ordeals and it is not surprising that they also have similar elements that are present in their characteristics. Yann Martel and John Sturges have done a superb job in presenting these elements in their stories, as I believe that they have improved the quality of the stories overall.
After Macbeth hears that Birnam wood is moving towards him, he wants to go out fighting. He attacks and kills Young Siward in a desperate attempt to save him from the fate the witches predicted (V, vii, 11-12). He also orders all his soldiers to attack the wood (macduff’s soldiers, V, vii, 46-53) and he fights Macduff but Macduff says he was born by a c-section and not by a woman (V, vii, 41-45) Macbeth fights to the death but is beheaded by Macduff as the witches said he would. (V, vii, 82-83)
Have you ever wondered what the animals on Pi’s lifeboat represent? In the adventure fantasy novel, Life of Pi, written by author Yann Martel, a Canadian author whose books had won numerous awards, tells a story of an Indian teenage boy, Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, and his incredible 277 day journey in the Pacific after sinking of a Japanese cargo ship, Tsimtsum. Pi tells the story of his adventure, and also creates an alternative story which he tells the two Japanese investigators which substitute the animals with different people to make the story more believable. However, the animals on the lifeboat with Pi symbolize different person and different human natures. The three most significant symbolism in this book are of the animals are the
The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities that interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional — but is it more true?
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 story he or she thinks is true, but rather what story he or she thinks is the better story. In real life, this applies in a very similar way to common belief systems and religion. Whether or not God is real or a religion is true is not exactly the point, but rather whether someone chooses to believe so because it adds meaning and fulfillment to his or her life. Life of Pi is relevant to life in its demonstration of storytelling as a means of experiencing life through “the better story.”
Macbeth's intelligence consists of thoughts of how to become king and secure his position without actually considering the consequences that his behaviour will cause. When Macbeth is promised by the three witches that he will soon become King, he takes his destiny into his own hands and attempts to speed up the process by murdering Duncan, and literally crowning himself as the new King of Scotland. This becomes known as the turning point in Macbeth's moral nature and loyalties as he embarks on further atrocities with increasing ease. He puts all his trust into witchcraft and demands the three witches to predict his future by showing him several illusions. From these illusions, Macbeth realises “… for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth" (4, 1, 79-81), because every man is born from a woman and so Macbeth b...
Martel’s novel is about the journey of a young man being forced to test his limits in order to survive the unthinkable predicament of being lost at sea alongside an adult Bengal tiger. Life of Pi starts out by introducing an anonymous author on a quest to find his next big story and goes to a man by the name of Piscine Molitor Patel who supposedly has a story worth hearing. Patel begins his story talking about his childhood and the main events that shaped him such as his family’s zoo, the constant curiosity in religion he sought as a young boy and also how he got his nickname Pi. Mr. Patel continues explaining how his father contracts a Japanese ship to transport his family, along with a number of their zoo animals, from India to Canada in order to avoid political upheaval. While traveling the ship began sinking and Pi was the only one to manage to make it onto the life boat and survive the wreck. The disaster left Pi along with a fe...
The days immediately following the sinking of the Tsimtsum were a few of the most brutal for Pi. His mind was tortured with the hopes of finding other survivors from the ship. Each day, Pi worried about the ones that would follow without his family. “Things would work out. The worst was over. I had survived the night” (page 119). His mindset blocked out the horrifying reality of his future in isolation as a castaway.
By choosing to murder the family, Macduff’s rage was enough to want revenge on Macbeth, having him killed. Approaching the final scenes, Malcolm and Macduff have been informed of Macbeth's latest murder. When Macduff becomes sore hearted, Malcolm steps in with words of guidance. “Be this the whetstone of your sword, let grief// Convert to anger. Blunt not the heart, enrage it.” (Ⅳ.Ⅲ, 231-232) . In these words, Macduff is told to use his rage with his sword to finally have Macbeth slaine, which inevitably brought him to his demise. After everything, Macbeth became a tragic hero because he could not and would not control his flaw, which eventually resulted in his untimely
Imagine being stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat, not alone but with some carnivorous animals, as company. The chances of survival do not seem so high, but when one has the will to survive, they can do anything to attain it. Pi Patel and his family are on their way to Canada from Pondicherry, India, when their cargo ship the Tsimtsum sinks. Pi is not the only survivor of the ship, along with him is a hyena, an injured zebra, an orangutan and a 450-pound orange Bengal tiger. Pi travels across the Pacific Ocean in only a lifeboat, with food dwindling quickly, he needs to find land and most of all survive the voyage. In Life of Pi; Yann Martel develops the idea that having the will to survive is a crucial key to survival; this is demonstrated through symbolism of the colour orange, having religion on the protagonist’s side and the thirst and hunger experienced by the protagonist.