The archetypal quest requires a quester, a mission for a journey, and several perilous obstacles and dangers that ultimately lead the individual towards self-discovery and spiritual peace. In the film Life of Pi, a young Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel embarks on a journey from the peaceful, colorful nation of India across the vast Pacific Ocean towards new opportunities and future success in Canada. Pi’s family owned a popular zoo in India but decided to move in search of new beginnings and financial rewards, so they loaded all their belongings and animals on a cargo ship and set sail. After only a few days aboard the ship, he awoke in the middle of the night to a loud siren and after ascending to the top deck he discovered the boat was sinking. He tried desperately to return to the cabins and save his family but the crew members threw him aboard a lifeboat which prematurely descended as a zebra jumped in after him. All he could do …show more content…
Not only did he have to learn how to survive in one of the most impossible landscapes, he also had to train and avoid one of nature’s most ferocious predators in a confined space. As their food and water supply began to deplete, he had to learn how to catch fish and collect rainwater to satiate both his and his beast’s hunger and thirst. Pi experienced a spiritual dilemma because as a Hindu, Christian, and Muslim he abstains from eating meat but while out upon that aquatic battlefield he had to decide between his religious morals and his earthly survival. He eventually succumbed to eating strips of dried fish and drinking the nutritious blood of sea turtles, but in return for this gift of sustenance, he traded part of who he had been. Pi faced many dangerous obstacles as he struggled to convince himself that to continue living was still a fight worth
Pi Patel in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is a young Indian boy who is put through a tremendous traumatic experience; he gets lost at sea! Not only does he lose all his family, but he is forced to survive 227 days at sea with very limited resources. This ordeal causes great psychological pressure on Pi and causes his mind to find ways to cope with all the stress. When asked to describe what happened, Pi tells two stories: one with him surviving with animals including an adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and a parallel story with humans in which Pi is forced to bend morality. Pi’s story of his survival with Richard Parker is a fiction that he creates to cope with a reality that is too difficult to face.
Pi’s journey starts out in a town in India known as Pondicherry. Here he finds a great interest in both Zoology( the study of animals), and religion. Pi also as well shows much knowledge in Zoology as shown in this quote from the book. “I got every possible student award from the department of Zoology.” (Pg.6) Pi, relating to religion(his other great interest), believes in multiple religions of which include Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Pi also finds great enjoyment in going to the Zoo, a zoo in which his own father owns. Pi’s great home life before his journey doesn’t last too long however. Soon the Tamil
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 maintains his religious beliefs while on the life boat through his daily prayers. He takes time aside each day to say the prayers that he always would say. In one instance, he turns where he believes Mecca is located, and prays his traditional prayers towards Mecca. Pi also often states that he will include specific animals in his prayers, such as the zebra aboard his lifeboat, and the first fish that he ever killed. With Pi keeping his ritual prayers going, it helped him to survive.
Pi starts a story without animals in which a French Cook, a sailor with a broken leg and his mother are with him on the lifeboat. The cook cuts off the sailor’s leg and eats him, scaring Pi. Later Pi’s mother and the cook have an argument which leads the cook to kills Pi’s mother, throwing her head to Pi. After, Pi kills the cook. Mr. Okamoto notices the similarities in the stories the two men don’t know what to believe. They continue to question for details about the actual sinking of the ship. Pi requests that they choose which story they like best. The two men enjoy the first story, to which causes Pi to begin to cry.
Pi, short for Piscine Molitor Patel, is a young Indian boy growing up in South India in the 1970's. His father owns a zoo and, with increasing political unrest in India, decides to sell up and emigrate to Canada. They accompany the wild animals on board the ship on their journey to the new zoos in North America.
At the start of novel, and when Pi is a child, he is extremely religious. He devotes his life to loving God, and even practices three religions to do so. He practices Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. His explanation for practicing all three is that according to Bapu Gandhi, “‘All religions are true’”(69). Pi explains that he practices all three religions because, “[he] just wants to love God”(69). Pi’s major religious values and faith in God continue to shape his life daily, until the shipwreck leaves him stranded on the Pacific, with a tiger for 227 days. Although Pi still remains religious and continues to praise God most days, the shipwreck does change Pi’s religious morals. Richard Parker is the factor that begins this change in Pi, because Pi knows that in order to survive he will have to fish to provide for Richard Parker if he wants to avoid being eaten himself. Fishing, however goes against the religious practice of Hinduism, which requires vegetarianism. Also, killing animals goes against Pi’s whole religious morals to not hurt another living being. Pi says the idea of killing a fish, and of “beating a soft living head with a hammer [is] simply too much”(183). It goes against everything he believes in. So, he decides to instead cover to fish’s head and break its neck (183). He explains that, “he [gives] up a number of times.
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.
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...
Nearing the end of the hero’s journey, it can be noted that the protagonist is usually seduced away from the original quest when a temptation, without warning, arises and entices them to stay in a particularly blessed land forever. The poisonous Algae Island in which Pi comes across towards to end of the novel represents this trial as the never-ending supply of fresh water and food lures him to eternal stay there and forget about his task of returning to civilisation; “Nothing, I thought, could ever push me to return to the lifeboat and to the suffering and deprivation I had endured on it―nothing!” Pg. 279. It is not until Pi finds the remains of another human-being wrapped in layers of leaves does he realise that the island is carnivorous and has an evil essence to it. He becomes aware that living on this apparently peaceful island will lead to a bleak and solitary life as physical comfort is equivalent to a spiritual death.
His love and understanding of zoology was the reason he survived on the life raft. Even though Pi went against his morals and ate meat, Pi saw it as necessary to survive. His will to survive and to eliminate all personal boundaries allowed him to do what ever deed needed to survive. And finally using his knowledge of animals as a means of maintaining a psychological level of sanity, which kept him motivated and sane throughout his time at sea. With the extreme circumstances that Pi lived through, and the means he used to cope with them, it is obvious that his choices were
In the lifeboat, his choices were based on his religion. For instance, Pi hesitated first to kill the fish because he was vegetarian, but he set aside his religion because he believes that he needs to survive since he thinks God is with him. He thanks Vishnu, a Hindu God, for coming as a fish to save him. “Even when God seemed to have abandoned me … indifferent to my suffering, He was watching; and when I was beyond all of hope of saving, He gave me rest, and gave me a sign to continue my journey.” This quote portrays how Pi felt that God was with him every time, and that is why he is willing to live and not give up.
As the reader examines the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the reader recognizes the similarities between the story of the animals and the factual story. The main character Piscine Molitor Patel, known as Pi, goes through many struggles once he is stuck on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean which are shown between both of his stories. Throughout the novel, Martel describes to the readers the relationships the Pi has between the animals in the story of animals and the real people in the factual story. In Life of Pi, Pi meets many different animals on his journey on the lifeboat that influence him in many ways, including the zebra, which represents the Taiwanese sailor; the hyena, which represents the chef; Orange Juice, the orangutan, which represents Pi’s mother; and the Royal Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, which represents Pi himself.
He’s lived with one in a lifeboat for quite sometime. Hasn’t been around humans since his parents died. So his mind has landed into survival mode. And sometimes survival mode means animal-like behavior. “I will further confess that, driven by the extremity of my need and the madness to which it pushed me, I ate some of his flesh. I mean small pieces, little strips that I meant for the gaff 's hook that, when dried by the sun, looked like ordinary animal flesh. They slipped into my mouth nearly unnoticed. You must understand, my suffering was unremitting and he was already dead” (Chapter 91). He just ate the French Chief with Richard Parker. Sure, he was dead, but this proves the more that Pi had taken on animal-like behavior to survive. Pi would not have done that on his own. Infact, the French Chief would not have been dead if Richard Parker had not been there. Pi would not have made it that far without him. He would have died in the middle of the ocean if Richard Parker had not been there to mentally make Pi fight for
There’s only so much a person can take when trying their best to survive. The mere stress of the situation can make people go crazy and even beg for an end to their suffering, causing them to make rash decisions. It's true, Pi had many terrible experiences. He often reflected on them and told about them throughout the story. Pi never let the situation get the best of him. He persisted and persisted and did all that he could just to live. And though he didn't swim because of the distance being too long, he used that endurance in another way. He took on whatever challenges came his way, but even when he thought all hope was lost, he never gave