A quick glance at Life of Pi and a reader may take away the idea that it is an easy read and a novel full of imagination, but take a Freudian view on the work and it transforms into a representation of the human psyche. Martel’s novel takes the reader on a journey with Pi as he struggles for his own survival. Pi experiences a breakdown of each component that makes up ones personality according to Freud throughout the novel. One by one id, ego and super ego both express a huge factor in Pi’s choices and emotions throughout his story. The readers are also introduced to an alternate ending to choose from. This alternate ending plays a key role in understanding how to view the novel through Freudian lenses. Freud’s theory of psychoanalysis clarifies many troubling issues raised in the novel Life of Pi. 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... ... middle of paper ... ... how it has a connection to Freud’s idea of psychoanalysis. When Pi reveals an alternate story of the events that unraveled and led him to the Mexican beach it brings his story to a halt. The reader has to decide for themselves which story is to be believed. When looking at both stories it is easy to match up the connections on the characters being switched. It also makes it very clear that Richard Parker could have been a disguised idea of Pi’s actual id, the reason for his survival. Meanwhile Pi stood for his own ego and somewhat managed to answer to both his id and super ego to some extent. By the ending of the novel the readers come to conclude Mr. Patel does come full circle and carries all three aspects, the id, ego, and super ego and is a functioning member of society once again. Works Cited Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print.
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.
Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” shows all three of the main elements of a hero’s journey: the departure, initiation and the return, helping the story to greatly resemble Joseph Campbell’s structure of a hero’s journey. Through the trials Pi has to face, he proves himself to be a true hero. He proves himself, not just while trapped on the lifeboat with Richard Parker, but also before the sinking of the Tsimtsum. His achievement to fulfill the heroic characteristics of Campbell’s model are evident as he goes though the three stages.
In the book, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, a blooming young boy named Pi Patel begins to develop a wondrous mind that expands his knowledge, true meaning of independence and value of life. His imagination is what allows him to cope and get through his suffering. The role of his imagination and stories are extremely significant in the sense that these tellings are completely irrelevant to his current situation. Forcing him to not feel alone, he creates a solution using his imaginative trait as a distraction from reality. Pi Patel is a sixteen year old boy whose imagination can be described to such an extent that one may actually believe it.
Through the completion of the steps in the journey, the protagonist of the story successfully becomes a hero. The main character in Life of Pi, Pi demonstrates this journey with his background being introduced as sad and gloomy with an academic background in religious studies and zoology. He is also shown as a believer of three ‘polar’ religions, Hinduism, Christianity and later Islam simultaneously. The second stage, the call to action occurs when Pi’s father makes a dramatic decision to emigrate out of India and into Canada. This subtly introduces how Pi’s life was going to begin to experience turmoil and learn how to overcome grim obstacles. Every hero has a moment of refusal where they momentarily decline the journey out of fear of the unknown. Pi demonstrates this as well with his hesitation of leaving his homeland and travelling to a foreign and unknown country. The most climatic stage of the journey would be crossing the threshold which shows the hero entering an unfamiliar district with unknown rules (Writers Journey). When the ship sinks, Pi gets separated on a lifeboat stranded alone with only the company of a hyena, zebra, orangutan and a Bengali tiger. This validates Pi’s unawareness of what to do in the circumstances. The ordeal, when the hero faces their greatest fear and briefly meets death is the
Josiah Rodrigues Mr. Atkins English 10 Honors Period 1 March 28, 2017 The Life of Pi Spring Break Homework In the novel The Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, Pi a man of many religions, survives a lifechanging shipwreck and spends months in a lifeboat with a large Bengal tiger named Richard Parker trying to survive. In the beginning of Life of Pi, Yann Martel went in depth about Pi’s childhood and youth.
Throughout the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the notion of how the concepts of idealism and truth mold an individual’s life are vividly displayed. This is emblematized as Pi questions the idea of truth and the affects it has on different aspect of life, as well as his idealistic values being transformed due to the contrast between taking action and sheer belief. The messages generated will alter the way the reader thinks, as well as reshaping their overall perception of truth.
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
Isolation is a foe that many face. In Life of Pi, the author, Yann Martel, describes a long, isolated journey where the main character, Pi, is stranded on a lifeboat adrift in the Pacific Ocean. With no human companions and only the company of a Bengal tiger, Pi is constantly surrounded by isolation. Martel illustrates the idea that isolation causes the loss of a person’s values through Pi’s loss in religion, family, and humanity.
Society is known to put everyone and everything into roles that, if or when the role assigned is changed, all hell breaks loose. Through Freud’s theory, he explains the behaviors that are associated with the id, the ego, and the superego. Being that Pi was someone who had been relatively well-off prior to embarking on his trip to Canada and then thrown into a new scenario that involves him becoming a starving survivor of a boat wreck stuck in a boat with a tiger that is threatening to eat him, it can be seen that Freud’s theory is displayed. When observing the events that take place throughout Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, it is observable that he creates an impressive relationship between Freud’s theory of the id, ego, and superego and Pi’s mental facade while using a paradox within the specific animals, as well as his strive for survival.
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.”
The Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, is the story of a young man, Piscine, or Pi for short, who experiences unbelievable and unrealistic events, which are so unrealistic ambiguity is aroused amongst the reader. Duality reoccurs over the course of the novel through every aspect of Pi’s world view and is particularly seen in the two contradictory stories, which displays the brutal nature of the world. Martel wonderfully crafts and image of duality and skepticism though each story incorporated in this novel.
Life of Pi is a story full of adventure, animals and spiritual symbolism. It begins in the Indian town of Pondicherry. An anonymous author meets an elderly man named Francis Adirubasamy who tells him that he has a story that will make him believe in God. Although skeptical, the author is highly intrigued. The subject of the story is Pi Patel, who is now living in Toronto and the author discovers, willing to share his story.
Yann Martel, in his novel Life of Pi (2001) argues that fear is the only enemy of life because it paralyzes the body from taking action and inhibits one’s ability to defend oneself. The action of Martel’s novel is set in 1977 in the middle of the ocean, where Pi Patel is stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days before being rescued. The purpose in writing Life of Pi was to put a man’s unbelievable journey on paper in order to imply that hope, trust and faith will grant someone the will to live. Fear versus life throughout the novel is analyzed through the archetypal, psychological, Marxist and deconstruction critical lenses.
The power of Imagination can give humans the will power to accomplish anything. In the book Life of Pi by Yann Martell Imagination helped Pi the main character get through his long journey aboard a lifeboat. Over the course of this story Pi encounters many different situations where he needs to use his imagination. Towards the end of the book you as the reader have the option to believe the story you just read or a second story, a more vulgar and less interesting story. As the reader you have to use your imagination just like how Pi needed to use his imagination. Imagination allowed Pi to survive by keeping him sane, protecting him and lastly to acquire the traits of telling a beautiful story.
In drastic situations, human psychology uses coping mechanisms to help them through it. In the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi’s coping mechanism is his religions and his projection of Richard Parker. Martel’s Life of Pi shows how the projection of Richard Parker played a greater role in keeping Pi alive in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. During the period in which Pi was stranded on the lifeboat, Richard Parker kept Pi aware, helped Pi make the right decisions, and was Pi’s sub-consciousness.