Life of Pi essay

Life of Pi essay

Reflection: I really enjoyed reading this book. The story was very interesting because of what an impact the events made. This is because the events were extremely disgusting and unimaginable. I also like the way the story was written, although the book was predictable, the style of it was nice. I also enjoyed the amount of symbolism and different elements that went into the book. Personally, I believe the animal story, which is the story i enjoyed more. Initially there was a point taken off for this essay in the content and knowledge part of this essay. In order to fix it, more detail was added to the introduction. There were also more examples added to my main connections in order to support them better.

Prompt: In a well developed essay, describe the themes/symbols the author used to portray Pi's will to live.

Most people are not able to go through suffering like Pi. He had to totally change his lifestyle and adapt to living on the boat. Pi went from being taken care of and fed by his parents, to having to survive all by himself. He had to push himself to fight hunger, thirst, and physical and mental weakness to survive.  In the book Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the author uses the tiger, the ocean, and the island to develop the theme of the will to live.

When Pi was first on the boat, he didn't know what to do, which makes him not have food for water for the first few days. He isn't use to having to hunt for his own food. He then decides he needs to adapt to survive. Pi starts his transformation with the first fish he catches. At first he cries, but then goes on to get use to catching fish and eating them. This shows more of animal instincts coming out. He starts eating anything and everything that he catches. This is shown with the raw meat he eats of fish and turtles. The raw meat of the animals become to taste good to him. Richard Parker does the same. Richard Parker is a savage eater, which is what Pi turns into. Pi has to eat everything he can in order to survive, which shows he has a very strong and persistent will to live.

Throughout the book, Pi is very spiritual. He is looking to create a closer relationship to god and love god. The ocean represents Christianity. When Pi first decides that he has a will to survive, he said that he will only survive if god is with him. The ocean is around the boat in mass amounts, so this shows that Pi's faith of god is always with him to get him through his suffering. When Pi and Richard Parker get flying fish coming up at them from the ocean, Pi thanks god for giving the fish to them. This shows that Pi was able to keep his will to live, even when he was suffering because Pi kept his his faith. He thought that god was with him so he will do what he needs to do to survive.

Pi is very thankful that he finds the island although becomes suspicious when Richard Parker comes back to the boat every night. Pi first sees how dead fish rise up from one of the holes in the island, and then finds teeth in the tree. Pi concluded that this island was man eating The island had to eat whatever came its way, along with a human, to survive. This shows what Pi has turned into by the end of his journey. Pi was eating every part of all the animals he was catching, and even was starting to get use to the taste. Pi even resorted to cannibalism with the sailor. He used the flesh for bait to catch more fish to feed himself and Richard Parker. He also ate some of the man's flesh himself. This showed the extremes of Pi's will to live. At first he didn't want to kill a fish, and now he is using a dead human to survive.

Pi's transformation into a savage eater kept him from dying. He had to do everything he could to survive. He had to be innovative, along with his animal like instincts to over come his suffering. Pi also kept his faith, in return this helped him to keep his will to live.