Conquering Adversity in The Life of Pi

Conquering Adversity Many people throughout their lives experience adversity in many ways. People have different ways of dealing with these problems. Some positive, and some negative. When faced with a loss of family and being the lone survivor of a sunken ship, Pi Patel from “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel, deals with his adversities, conflict and pain, in a positive way by being both resourceful and optimistic. Throughout the story, Pi develops the trait of being resourceful and uses simple items that surround him to do great things. Being resourceful is very important to overcoming challenges because it allows one to focus on what they have rather than wishing for something better. This is seen when uses various items on the lifeboat to construct an external raft to separate himself from Richard Parker, “And I had no proof that hanging at the end of an oar provided real safety from Richard Parker. He might easily reach and grab me. I had to find something else. My mind worked fast. I built a raft. The oars if you remember floated, and I had life jackets and a sturdy lifebuoy.” (Martel, 164) Evidently, Pi portrayed resourcefulness by using parts of the lifeboat to build another raft. Furthermore, being resourceful does not always mean utilizing material objects. Living things which are in abundance can also be used as a resource in a survival situation. After arriving at Meerkat Island, Pi uses meerkats as a resource;
The major difficulty in training animals is that they operate either by instinct or by rote. The shortcut of intelligence to make new associations that are not instinctive in minimally available. Therefore, imprinting in an animal’s mind the artificial connection…say, roll over, it will get a treat can be achieved by only mind-numbing repetition. I shouted Hep! Hep! Thousands of times, I tossed meerkats morsels at him that I would have gladly eaten myself. (Martel, 303)
This explains that Pi was being resourceful by using a few out of millions