Life Of Pi Survival Essay

Life of Pi, a novel written by Canadian author Yann Martel, is the incredible story of how 16-year old teenager Pi Patel survives 227 days trapped in a lifeboat with only a large 450-pound Bengal tiger for company. During his 7-month ordeal over the vast Pacific ocean, misery, hunger, and desperation threaten to blot out his existence, but with the help of his worst enemy and God, he pushes on. As he is forced to adapt to his new environment to survive, Pi finds himself forced into a harsh world where the best of the best survive.

Like many good novels, Life of Pi had many themes. One of these themes was that of survival, as basic or obvious as it would seem. A way that Martel made me understand the theme was through the intelligence of the characters. There were many examples of this in the book, ranging from as small as a thought to as large as
He represents the complete opposite of humans: savageness, ferocity, stupidity, basically a unit of life lower than us, without the intelligence to rival us, but that must be feared at all times*. The human must outwit and overcome the animal, which is just another problem for him. In this sense, this dangerous predator can also just represent wild animals in general, little more than prey or sport for us, not able to compete against us. This is especially the case when Pi finally manages to tame Richard, as seen on pages 202-205 (“To those that should find themselves in a predicament such as I was in, I would recommend the following program…”).

Other symbols in Life of Pi would include the ocean, which represented life and death at the same time, providing Pi with food but in exchange ruining his body with everything from sores to storms and the whistle, which slightly represented survival, as Pi needed it to keep Richard Parker at bay. In brief, symbols helped this story by allowing the reader to better understand the themes of the