Survival of the Fittest
Perseverance is key for survival because that action and thought can lead to great things. In “The Story of Keesh” and “The Life of Pi” both characters faced extreme environments that no man wants to face. Keesh and Pi use their skills to craft ideas and utilities to help them throughout their journey.
Pi was orphaned on a lifeboat with no one but a bengali tiger as his companion however he found ways to deal with his problems and power through them. “ There was no question. Thirst pushed me on” (Martel 85).Pi’s greatest worry was thirst. He cared more about his thirst than he did an enormous bengali tiger. However, he pushed on and tried to find water on board. Although, after Pi has located and drank his water
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Keesh decided to talk to the council about his mistreatment but they shunned him and told him to go to bed because he was nothing but a young boy. ”I too his son shall go and hunt the meat that I eat. And it be known now, that the division of that which I kill shall be fair. And no widow or weak one shall cry in the night because there is no meat…”(London 64). Keesh takes matters into his own hands because of the council so he by himself goes out into the cold wasteland to hunt his own meat. As Keesh returns from his hunt everyone is in awe at the meat that he has hunted. For a young boy with no help to get that much meat was a myth. Keesh continued to go alone and hunt and he continues to bring back a great portion of meat. Although, Keesh only hunted bear and no other animal. “Why does thou hunt only bear?” Klosh-Kwan once ventured to ask him. And Keesh made a fitting answer. “It is well known that there is more meat on the bear, “ he said(London 67). Keesh goes for gold while he is hunting. He wants the greatest amount of meat to feed his village. As he stated “No widow or weak one shall cry at night because there is no meat”(London 64). Meaning that other animals do not fulfill the needs of the village. Keesh was respected by many but speculations began to sprout of how Keesh hunts his meat. Many said witchcraft and black magic. However,
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.
In the book Life of Pi Yann Martel tells the story of a man, Pi Patel, who survives a shipwreck and has to live on a lifeboat for months with a wild tiger named Richard Parker. Throughout the book, Pi struggles to survive on the lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. He had limited resources and had to deal with challenges, such as bad weather, and Richard Parker. Pi survived in the end, but it was because of his determination to survive throughout the whole journey. Yann Martel displays the theme that people must have the will to survive by his use of figurative language, such as similes, metaphor, and personification.
Many people today are astounded at the atrocities that the prisoners of the Nazi Death Camps survived; I can presume what my fate would be if I were ever forced into such a situation. Similarly, it is hard to imagine surviving a shipwreck in the middle of the largest ocean, but that is what Pi Patel did. On his way to Canada with his father and a shipment of a variety of large zoo animals, Pi’s journey on a large freight is ended due to an accident, and a new one begins on a life raft. Pi and a Bengal Tiger, named Richard Parker, are the last survivors on the lifeboat, and Pi manages to survive despite the elements and shark infested water. “It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose form that I’ve made none the champion,” Pi describes of his 227 days at sea. The experience at sea was not only horrific because Pi struggled to save his own life, but also because he witnessed the death of his mother and father, as well as his beloved zoo animals. The sinking of the freight carries great symbolism because Pi’s entire life as he knew it was sank along with the ship: “I looked about for my family, for survivors, for another lifeboat, for anything that might bring me hope.
When we have courage or set our hearts to things we want to accomplish, we will succeed in the endeavor. In Life of Pi there is amazing almost unrealistic courage shown in many different ways. Pisicine Patel started out as a normal young boy who lives in India, mid-1970s. He goes to school, he’s bullied, and works just as the rest of us. His family owns a zoo which holds a wide variety of animals. They recently
How can two people in different excerpts, survive in harsh weather, bad conditions, or hunger? Well these two people used their bravery, patience, and most important for all human beings is intelligence. Anyone can survive on extreme environments especially Pi and Keesh who can believe they can survive and think what they’re about to do.
In Aron Rolston's interview with Michael Benodist he states, "I feel like I'm climbing as well, if not better than ever." Aron showed perseverance to his goal of ont just surviving his climbing ordeal, but also moving on and sticking to climbing as his passion instead of his newfound taboo. This is just as significant in relation to survival because you need to pursue the goal of making it out alive constantly despite hardship or difficulty. Another example of perseverance is the everyday struggle of work and school that takes a survivor with perseverance to live and function everyday lives. When you show true perseverance to survive, a true devotion, nothing can stop you from
In conclusion, this is why I believe the book “Life of PI” is a story about a hero’s journey in the book. Pi is thrown into the situation without doing anything wrong. Pi doesn’t deserve this, infact he is a bright and smart kid as mentioned in earlier pages from the book. You want Pi to live, mainly because Pi doesn’t deserve to die. This, in the end, is why I believe Pi’s journey of survival in the harsh Pacific Ocean is a hero’s journey type of
“You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.” Adapting to a new situation or experience like violent crashing waves can be difficult. Nevertheless, a person needs to learn how to surf in order to outlast the pounding waves. In a similar fashion, individuals need to learn how to adapt to a challenging situation in order to survive. This idea of the significance of adapting to new situations is often explored in literature. In the novel, Life of Pi, Yann Martel makes powerful use of character development to suggest that individuals may be able to adapt to situations in life through a sense of determination, or through denying reality and using their imagination instead.
In the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the sinking of a ship begins Pi’s journey through the Pacific Ocean in a lifeboat. Yann Martel writes through the eyes of Pi as he experiences an epic 227 day journey with a Bengal tiger as his companion. The novel, however, is known for its double-story ending. When Pi is finally safe on land and getting interviewed about his adventure, he reveals an alternative story about what happened, one that involves humans. The human story is an incredibly harrowing tale of how Pi survived under terrible conditions. In Pi’s case, the embellishing of the human story to turn it into the animal story is a coping mechanism. This novel shows that as long as the
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.
Having just experienced the sinking of his family’s ship, and being put onto a life boat with only a hyena, Pi felt completely lost and alone. When he sees Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger from his family’s zoo, it is a familiar face to him. His initial reaction is to save the life of his familiar friend so that he may have a companion, and a protector aboard the lifeboat. Suddenly Pi realizes just what he is doing. He is saving the life of Richard Parker, by welcoming him, a 450 pound Bengal tiger, onto the small lifeboat. He experiences a change of heart when helping the tiger onto the boat. Pi realizes that he is now posing a threat on his own life. With Richard Parker on the boat, Pi is faced with not only the fight to survive stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but the fight to survive living with a meat eating tiger. The change of heart that Pi experiences might possibly mean that he is an impulsive thinker. It may mean that he often does something on impulse without thinking it through, and then later regrets his actions.
The ship sinks and Pi finds himself the only human survivor onboard a life raft that contains, rather remarkably, a zebra, a large motherly orangutan, a frenzied hyena and a 450-pound Bengal tiger.
“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive” (Martel 44-45). Inside every human being, there is an extremely primal and animalistic trait that can surface when the will to survive becomes greater than the morals of the person. This trait allows humans to overcome their fear to do things which they wouldn’t normally be able to do in order to survive when they’re in extreme peril and in a do or die situation. Throughout the book, Life of Pi, survival is a dominant and central theme. The will to survive changes people and this includes the main character of the story, Piscine Molitor Patel. Survival will even change the most timid, religious, and law-abiding people. Yann Martel, using Pi as an example, tries to explain that all humans must do three things in order to survive a life threatening event: one must give up their morals, one must find a way to keep sane, and one must be ready to compromise and sacrifice.
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.
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.