Humans appear to regard their animal counterparts as something “Other”: creatures meant to complement humans as companions, or more accurately, albeit crudely, slaves. They are one of the most popular sources of humanity’s entertainment, cuisine, objects of marvel, and laborers. Forthwith, one can assume that having defined the “Other”, there is a disparate force that acts their counterpart. Thus, accordingly, an invisible line is drawn between humans and animals. The protagonists of two notable novels, H.G. Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, bridge the divide between animality and humanity in a way that mediates on the differences between humans and animals through the juxtaposition of, respectively, Prendick …show more content…
Prendick and Pi are sickened when they display bestiality despite the fact that the animal tendencies of both protagonists were present from the beginning of both novels. Chapter Eight of Life of Pi establishes that the mirror in the zoo is a physical representation of the potential threat humans pose, and the savagery to which humans can descend. This is substantiated in the ensuing events when Pi, who does not appear to be in his right mind, rescues Richard Parker from a watery death and allows him in the lifeboat. As Parker is shown to be an embodiment of Pi, this suggests that Pi is inviting the bestial traits Parker represents into cohabitation with him. Furthermore, Pi “tears flowing down [his] cheeks” (Martel 203) breaks the neck of a flying fish. Yet, not a long while later he can “gleefully bludgeon to death a dorado” (Martel 205) or suck the blood out of a freshly decapitated sea turtle. Pi comments “a person can get used to anything, even to killing” (Martel 205). He further notices with shame his animal-like habits and compares himself to Parker stating he “ate like an animal, that this noisy frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of [his] was exactly the way Richard Parker ate” (Martel 249). He eventually resorts to cannibalism to satisfy his hunger, “descending to a level …show more content…
Glendening argues that humans are “evolved from animals and bear innumerable traces of this ancestry, there can be no absolute or essentialist gap between them” (575) in reference to Darwin. Yet, while it is true that humans are theorized to have evolved from animals, it can be argued that Wells and Martel describe an intrinsic gap between animals and humans that cannot be crossed. Pi reiterates this point, when he learns that “an animal is an animal, essentially and practically removed from us” (Martel 34) through Richard Parker. Although, Parker is humanized in name, he is purely animal in needs and understanding. Martel writes that humans become most dangerous to themselves when they do not comprehend animals as animals (34). As humans stop differentiating between animals and humans, animals advance up the food chain, taking from humans the power as the dominant species. Through the change in control, the line has not disappeared– humans have only given animals the opportunity to redraw the line between animality and
Darwin’s Theory of evolution is that man evolved from the likes of animals. The author, H.G. Wells, used Darwin’s theory as a basis to write The Island of Dr. Moreau. Darwin’s theory challenged this metaphysical barrier by suggesting that humans were merely exceptionally well evolved, and Wells appears to be trying to assert human exceptionalism” (Wells, H.G.). Wells used certain writing styles to bring the reader into the story. H. G. Wells used imagery, figurative language, and setting in The Island of Dr. Moreau to depict a distinction between man and animals in everyday life.
According to the Oxford dictionary, the term “Animal” means a living organism which feeds on organic matter, typically having specialized sense organs and nervous systems and able to respond rapidly to stimuli. Although this is a very apt definition as it defines the word thoroughly, the Oxford definition missed out a great aspect of what animals truly are. The Oxford definition did not define the charisma of an animal nor did it define the emotions of an animal. What the Oxford dictionary could not achieve (in simple words), the Life of Pi did. The Life of Pi is a powerful novel by Yann Martel which narrates the endearing journey of an animal, the Royal Bengal Tiger known as Richard Parker from its master, Piscine Molitor Patel’s perspective. Yann Martel described Richard Parker in a way no one else could have. The book showcases Richard’s perseverance; his
In the novel The Island of Doctor Moreau the author tells a story of a man who is thrown away from his ship and has no other way out but to accept the help of his strange fellow traveler who lives on a remote island. The main theme of the novel is exploring the human nature, its main characteristics and borders. When the narrator, Pendrick, steps onto the island, he realizes that it is full of different mysterious things. He gets acquainted with Doctor Moreau who with the help of vivisection turns animals into hybrids similar to humans. Doctor Moreau uses the perfect human genes combining with animal DNAs, but the result turns to be different. Beast people do different kinds of things, because they don’t know what is wrong or right. Therefore,
Both Ang Lee’s Life of Pi and Carol Birch's Jamrach’s Menagerie, use many references to animals throughout, both comparing the protagonists to animals, animals having human like qualities; by doing this they question if to survive one has to sometimes has to resort back to animal instinct, but what if it is more than a choice, do times of survival, simply reveal what animalistic characteristics we have learned to suppress over thousands of years, we are always the wolf having to act like a human.
Singer’s thesis is that the intelligence, capabilities, or profitable values of animals does not make them lesser deserving of rights. This is rooted in the idea of suffering being the baseline instead of intelligence. Every animal can suffer, just as a human can, but a rock cannot. His abortion analogy shows that there may be specific considerations of rights more pertinent to one individual over another, but each is an equal to the other. Singer also points out that while one can easily decide not to be a racist, most of us are speciests because our only real contact with many animals is as food.
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.
...eating the zebra alive in Chapter 45. Another example of Thanatos is shown when the hyena bites a hole into the zebra and Pi feels a sense of hatred towards the hyena for hurting the zebra and he even considers attacking it. An id and ego split is also shown between Pi and Richard Parker by showing Richard Parker to be an imaginary tiger that is created by Pi in order to keep him alive and focused on staying alive. Pi eventually abandons his superego and partakes in eating meat, even though he was a strict vegetarian prior to being lost at sea. Over the duration of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the story relates to Freud’s theories in several ways that are made blatantly obvious; these relations are what makes this story come together to keep the reader involved and interested.
It is not unlikely that in severe circumstances, humans use the company of one another to survive. For example, in Night, Elie Wiesel uses his father to motivate him to live during his terrifying stay at Auschwitz. However, not all cases of this “survival relationship” necessarily involve two humans. In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, when he is shipwrecked at sea for 227 days, Pi Patel faces life-threatening circumstances every minute of the day. After his rescue,though, he tells two different stories to explain this incredulous journey. One involves loneliness and brutality,while the other involves animals and faith, the latter being the true story. Pi’s explanation involving animals is the true story because it vividly and descriptively displays
But in “Eating Animals” Johnathan Safran Foer goes deeper than simply writing a book about food, how that food made it to your plate, or whether you should or shouldn’t eat animals. He asks “What is an animal? … What is a human?” (Foer 60) He goes on to say, “Even by the dictionary definition, humans both are and are not animals. In the first sense, humans are members of the animal kingdom. But more often, we casually use the word animal to signify all creatures — from orangutan to dog to shrimp —
In his essay, “The Damned Human Race,” Mark Twain makes the argument that humans did not evolve from the animals to become a higher species, but that instead, they have sunken below the animals to become a lower race. He calls this the “Descent of Man from the Higher Animals,” in a parody of the Darwinian theory of “The Ascent of Man from the Lower Animals.” Twain’s character takes the role of a scientist performing experiments in the London Zoological Gardens, and he establishes his credibility early on, saying that he has “subjected every postulate… to the crucial test of actual experiment…” The narrator opens with an experiment contrasting an English Earl and an Anaconda. The Earl, Twain says, went hunting buffalo.
The primacy of survival and self preservation are natural instincts, often triggered by the ordeals of suffering. In the novel Life of Pi, Yann Martel exemplifies the notion of survival, as the shipwrecked inhabitants experience the trials and tribulations of suffering. A conception of willpower is projected through the actions of distinctive characters, who demonstrate their ambition towards life. Their paradoxical attempt of valiant or barbaric acts, emphasizes the key idea of survival. Determination and perseverance is evident in the actions executed by Pi, the zebra and the hyena, assisted by their sheer will to live.
Although the chapter is occasionally hard to follow, Haraway successfully demonstrates an empathetic response to animals suffering due the actions of humans subjecting them to research. She uses arguments to support her views that animals should be regarded as co-workers rather than objects that simply react and are dispensable. She looks at the different perspectives of the act of killing between animals and humans, and states “The problem is actually to understand that human beings do not get a pass on the necessity of killing significant others, who are them-selves responding, not just reacting” (Haraway 2007, 80). This view is unique in comparison to what society commonly believes, so reading this chapter was both enlightening and interesting. Despite the interesting ideas and arguments that Haraway communicates, the chapter often has run on sentences and unnecessarily lengthy words, such as ‘multiplicitous’ (Haraway 2007, 80). This often made the chapter hard to read and therefor difficult to digest. This can, however, be seen as a fault of my own. My final thoughts on chapter 3 of ‘When Species Meet’ is that the extensive research that Haraway underwent proved effective when supporting her argument and, in turn, created a thought compelling and respectable piece of
He also realizes that continuing his strict vegetarian diet will not give him the sufficient amount of nutrients needed for survival. Pi ultimately has to resort to eating meat. Eating the fish was not the problem, killing the fish is what stood strictly against his morals. Pi states, “ I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I have ever killed. I was now a killer[…] I never forgot to include this fish in my prayers”(Martel 183). It is clearly shown that killing went against what Pi stood for. Pi states how “He will never forget this fish in his Prayers”(Martel 183), which is quite symbolic in that he would never forget that first fish. After this event, Pi killed many other sea creatures, but the first fish he killed was the largest sin he had. He felt the need to constantly pray to his Gods for a sense of relief for committing his sins. Pi quickly adapts to his new lifestyle of eating meat. Even though his morals see this as wrong, he quickly realizes that it is necessary for survival. “It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing”(Martel 185). Understanding that killing
Pi was raised to be both accepting and loving and this proved to be a downfall when the cook killed his mother after he trusted him. At the end of the novel when Pi talks about the cook killing his mother he says, “ But he never said ‘I’m sorry.’ Why do we cling to our evil ways?” (Martel 310). I believe that this is the scene when Pi really let the reality of what was going on around him slip away and let the animals take their place. Even after letting his emotions taking over and killing the cook, Pi still seems to have a hard time understanding that some people are just plain evil. Earlier, Pi talks more in depth of the cooks terrible ways and says, “The cook threw himself upon the sailor’s head and before our very eyes scalped him and pulled off his face.” (Martel 3017). Here, Pi describes how terrible and cannibalistic the cook is. I believe this is another moment where Pi began to let the realize the severity of the situation and what a toll staying with the cook will have on him. After the cook killed Pi’s mother, Pi says, “No whip could have inflicted a more painful lash. I held my mother’s head in my hands.” (Martel 310). In a final scene of depraved, raw anger, the cook takes out his sociopathic rage and Pi lets the last bit of his sanity slip away. I believe that Pi created the story of the animals so he did not have to deal with the memories of the human deaths, especially
The projection of Richard Parker helps Pi to be aware of this current situation, which was him being stranded in the ocean on a lifeboat in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. His fear towards Richard Parker was one of the reasons of his survival. Pi says, “Fear and reason fought over answer. Fear said yes. He was a fierce, 450-pound carnivore. Each of his claws was sharp as a knife” (Martel 108). Pi describes Richard Parker as an extremely dangerous, fearful, and vicious predator. This causes Pi keep aware because he is on a boat with a deadly carnivore. He tries to keep awake at night while being on the lifeboat with Richard Parker from the fear of being attacked and eaten by the Bengal tiger. However, since Richard Parker is Pi’s id, it was actually him keeping himself aware and alive. Pi states, “If I still had the will to live, it was thanks to Richard Parker. He kept me from thinking too much about my family and my tragic circumstances” (Martel 164). This shows how Richard Parker occupies Pi’s mind and influences his thoughts about the tragic incident that has happened. The will to live for Pi is no longer his family, but Richard Parker, his id. Richard Parker taught Pi how to survive based on his instincts an...