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 an action. A direct example of this type of intelligence would be on page 148, where as it states, “My mind worked fast. I built a raft. ” This quote proves that in order to survive, you must be better than your other competitors.
Pi survived only because of his greater intelligence, an asset that distinguished him from his fellow animals. Another example of Pi’s intelligence in this novel would be on page 213, where it states, “[Turtle shells] served not only as shields, but as cutting boards for fish… bowls for mixing food…[and] protect [him] from the sun. ” These sentences show that survival is granted only to the best through Pi’s intelligence, which let him survive and gave him an advantage.
Yet another example of survival through the actions of intelligence in characters would be on page 205, in which Pi uses turtle shells as a form of protection against Richard Parker (“In my case, to protect myself from Richard Parker while I trained him, I made a shield with a turtle shell. ”). This decision really convinced me that survival was a theme in the story because the action performed had been to increase Pi’s survival rate, presenting the undeniable fact that Darwinism really does hold true, a thing that the author has been trying to prove to the reader, or a theme.
Needless to say, I can admit that this theme was extremely crucial to the development of the story, coming back to me several times throughout the book. Whether you pay attention to it or not, whether you enjoy it or not, a writer’s style and voice is crucial to what distinguishes one book (series), like Harry Potter, to another, like The Lords of the Ring (two great book series). Life of Pi employed a narrative style of writing, with the reader often seeing things from the main character’s point of view and feelings.
Martel also writes in a detailed fashion when describing actions or objects, often using numbers, adjectives, and similes when doing so. An example of this would be his description of Richard Parker as seen from Pi’s eyes (page 151-152): “His body, bright brownish orange streaked with black vertical stripes, was incomparably beautiful… Atop the head were small, expressive ears shaped like perfect arches… Wavy dabs of black circled the face in a pattern that was striking yet subtle… The result was a face that looked like the wings of a butterfly and bore an expression vaguely old and Chinese.
As you can tell, this description was incredibly lengthy even with parts cut off, with many descriptive words and comparisons. As mentioned before, Martel also employed lots of narration and point of view in his story, or put basically, perspective from the main character. The reader was constantly alerted to how Pi felt about various situations, such as on page 177, where, as it quotes, “The next morning I was not too wet and feeling strong. I thought this was remarkable considering the strain I was under and how little I had eaten in the past several days.
This type of style elevated the writing by allowing me to see things more clearly, what not with the comparisons and detailed explanations of objects and events. On the whole, Martel’s style was what had encouraged me to continue reading the book in the first place, as his style was my type of reading style. It played an important part on my view of the book. Although not as important as the theme or style of the book, symbols in Life of Pi were still a relevant part of the story. One symbol in this book was Pi himself.
He represents mankind, our desire for wanting to exist, our ingenuity, creativity, and overall mind that allows us to do things that no other animal can ever hope to do. The young castaway can be regarded as this because of his actions. Whether emotionally based or done purely out of logic, Pi’s reasons for doing anything in this book were due to his humanity, his brain being able to feel and interact, to adapt at which humans are so versatile and able to do; what makes him and you human*.
Because of this human side of hum clearly showing through, Pi can be thought of as a symbol of all humans in this book; our fight for survival. Another symbol in this book would be, as fairly obvious, the complete opposite of man. Since this is a tale of survival, there must be an obstacle that the human will have to pass. In this case, it is the other occupant of the boat: Richard Parker. Richard Parker, in our sense of view, would sort of be the villain in this book.
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 story. To conclude this book, Life of Pi, the tale of a desperate castaway stuck in the Pacific Ocean for roughly 230 days with a full-grown Bengal tiger, was a very unique book for me. I had never quite read anything like it before. Especially near the end, the book became very strange and difficult to understand, but in a good and mysterious way.
The emotional part of me was also activated near the end, when Richard Parker ran away from Pi after they had landed in Mexico. I felt a variety of emotions, but mostly disconsolation, at this simple act and event because, like Pi, I thought that after spending so much time, so many adventures and memories with each other, they should have had at least a proper farewell before parting. After looking and reading this book through several times, I also came to realize one important lesson: that you can do anything if you put your mind to it.