Preview

Symbolism In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
764 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Symbolism In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi
In the book 'Life of Pi' you find a young man, who grew up in a very religious world surrounded by animals of wisdom. The author goes into deep explanation of Pi's life, about how he grew up in a zoo and had a tough childhood. Pi develops a love for a higher power and starts to grasp the understanding of God, by learning three different religions. The religions were Islam,Christianity and Buddhism. After each of the teachers found that he was following multiple religions, each of them told him that he could only follow one. Pi continued to follow each of the religions and eventually studied zoology, shocker! Anyway in time soon Pi was on a boat with his parents journeying to Canada where the boat mystically crashed and began to sink. Pi escaped …show more content…
At first Pi was telling Richard Parker to get to the boat which could easily be himself telling himself to get to the boat, when he has trouble reaching it he feels the need to give up and just when he was done with trying he is pulled up onto the life boat. After all how could have the tiger jumped onto the boat. The zebra represents a pattern mainly white and black which a sailor could easily represent. The sailor could have been dressed in white and the blood could have been represented by the black. Going on, once the hyena killed the monkey, the Bengal tiger then killed the Hyena. This could have been Pi enraging when the cook killed his mother. Once Pi killed the cook he was completely gone. I feel that Pi was just visioning a tiger and that is why the tiger never harmed him and rarely interacted with him. When Pi found the island I felt that he was simply not ready for real life and so he was drastically scared and so he thought he saw dead fish on the island, which caused him to only explore during the day. The island was considered toxic but no where on this planet has ever been recorded to have found an island so toxic and this 'island' was also never

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    I thought that this best fit into the plot of the story because imagine what it would’ve been like to be Pi, to manage surviving out of a sinking ship and knowing that all your family members have died in the ship as it sunk deep into the ocean and being stuck in a lifeboat with wild animals not knowing if or when they’re going to eat you. It must have been a…

    • 718 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, Piscine Molitor Patel illustrates the suffering of a survivor following a major traumatic event. After a cargo ship carrying a full zoo and all of Pi’s family sinks, Pi is left with a few animals and his thoughts to keep him company. While at sea, his supplies dwindle and he has to resort to extreme measures. These measures come into full effect when Pi’s boat leads him to another survivor. The characters of Pi and the other survivor, a French man, portray how the need to survive can force these survivors to resort to savage actions.…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    First, when pi was a little boy he became fascinated with three different religions. THe three religions were islam,hinduism, and christianity. The story says” But he can’t be a hindu,a christian, and a muslim. It’s impossible. He must choose.” In the quote the religious leaders have brought to attention that pi is practicing all religions. His parents are shocked because the religious leaders were fighting over pt. Each of the religious leaders wanted pi to devote himself to their religion because of the way he practices the religion. Religious leaders do like to see the youth involved with their studies or helping out the community.…

    • 477 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Life Of Pi Theme Analysis

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages

    While reading the book The Life of Pi you come across a ton of themes. There is not just one theme to pick from and the entire book is not just black and white. The Life of Pi is an amazing story about how a young man went against all the odds and survived something that most would see as certain death. The theme that I picked out for this book is the boundaries between humans and animals.…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pi's Devotion To Religion

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Pi's devotion to religion helped him through all the tough times in his life, especially the two hundred twenty seven days at sea. Throughout the story, Pi discovers three religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. One day while sitting down eating breakfast, Pi noticed three hills and on each were a church, a mosque, and a temple. Pi was nervous, but got the courage to visit each of these places of worship, in this moment he fell in love with all three religions.…

    • 284 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why Is Pi Come Out Alive?

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Now open your eyes think how could you have survived on that boat. Pi survived on that boat with a tiger for 227 days on the Pacific Ocean. The only reasons he came out alive was because these three beliefs with is God,his family and his caring of life. Because Pi's parents were strongly religious and had been brought up a serious Hindu. Religion is important to him in his everyday life.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Answer 1: Throughout the book, religion was a major part of Pi's survival. The author uses a character that follows three religions in order to prove that all religions have positive and negatives aspects. Religion was what kept Pi holding on for so long without giving up. The author uses Pi's three different faiths to represent different strengths that Pi possesses. It teaches the reader that it is possible for…

    • 282 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life Of Pi Rhetoric

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the novel, Pi is shown as a stranded boy on sea with all sorts of animals with limited amount of supplies. With animals such as a tiger and hyena, which are carnivorous in the same boat as other animals including Pi, the audience can assume that there will be some conflict among the group. At the end, its only Pi and Richard Parker (Tiger) left on the boat. In order to prevent himself being eaten by RP and remembering the advice his father gave him, he has to train RP and show that Pi is the boss around here and that he is…

    • 677 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fish Bowl Responses

    • 1526 Words
    • 7 Pages

    4. Besides his family and possessions, Pi lost, but also gained many things from his time stranded at sea. After being at sea for so long and experiencing the thigs he did, Pi lost his mental stability. In the beginning of the book, Pi has his head on straight and is focusing on surviving and staying alive. However, as time goes on, Pi begins to lose hope and become more and more insane. When Pi encounters a Frenchman and talks to him, he believes he is talking to Richard Parker and has completely lost his mind. This is shown when he says “I laughed. I knew it. I wasn’t hearing voices. I hadn’t gone mad. It was Richard Parker who was speaking to me! The carnivorous rascal” (Martel 246). Pi really has…

    • 1526 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    First and foremost, Richard Parker symbolizes the savagery within Pi. When Pi first enters the life boat, he is a civilized human being. During this time, Richard is under the tarpaulin, invisible to Pi. Yet, as the time Pi spends in the life boat augments, Richard begins to peak out. By the time Pi meets the blind man, Richard is all the way out, and in effect to this Pi eats the blind man.…

    • 249 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    How Did Pi Survive

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The religious beliefs that Pi has do not just leave him in the dark either. He is always taken care of. When he feels like there is no way of surviving he always talks to God and asks for help and he…

    • 589 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During Pi’s perilous lifeboat journey, he faced unfathomable survival decisions. Therefore, Pi created a menagerie for his emotional traumas in an effort to erase the unspeakable cruelty and violence he witnessed through various animal characters. In the book Life of Pi, Pi utilizes Richard Parker a symbol for his actions. To Begin with, both Richard Parker symbolizes Pi’s erratic and irrational behavior. After the sinking of the Tsimtsum, Richard Parker had an inconsistent set of actions. Richard Parker regularly attacked and ate available meat yet declined to attack Pi when given the opportunity. Similarly, Pi had erratic and inconsistent behavior. Pi can not consistently follow one form of organized religion, so he chooses to be a practicing…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Life of Pi Symbolism

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Karanvir Dhami Ms. Yu ENG3U March 7, 2011 Symbolism in Life of Pi In Life of Pi there are many literary devices used to present the different themes in the novel. The main literary device used in Life of Pi is symbolism. Symbolism is often used to represent an object to something else, either by association or by resemblance. Most of the names of animals, objects and even humans in this novel have a symbolic meaning. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, symbolism such as pi’s name, the colour orange and the algae island, are used throughout the novel to provide Pi with protection to help him either survive or overcome his emotional pain. The mathematical pi is undefined, infinite and unable to be understood, just like Piscine Patel. Piscine’s nickname is Pi and it has a symbolic relationship with the mathematical pi. Pi is sixteen when he is shipwrecked, and pi is also the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. Not only is the mathematical pi symbolic towards Pi, but it also provided him protection from school. Many of Pi’s classmates made fun of his full name and called him names such as “Pissing Patel”. When Pi transferred to a new school he took the first available opportunity to use his nick name, with “that Greek letter that looked like a shack … *Pi+ found refuge” (Martel, ). This nickname allowed him to find the protection from the bullying he would have got if he had used his actual name. The Greek letter symbolizes the roof the nickname has placed over Pi emotionally. Before the nickname was being used all his former classmates new him as only as…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There is a sense of irony in Yann Martel’s novel ‘Life of Pi’. “You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy so close to a coma…in your boredom there are elements of terror… and in the grip of terror -the worst storm- you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all.”(p217) Pi feels terror yet in the midst of that terror is the ironic part; he’s bored. One would expect Pi to be hopeless while on the lifeboat, yet it’s the opposite. He is hopeful and believes one should find happiness anywhere one can find it. “You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish.”(p217) most wouldn’t consider finding a dead fish lucky, but Pi does, for being in his situation changes one’s perspective and that finding a dead fish is lucky. What happens is the very…

    • 479 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life Of Pi Religion Essay

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Religion is a set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader. It is an illusion of freedom. Most are born into a religion and one must stick with it because of family aspects. Aspects and rules you have to follow. There is no freedom unless one would escape, which is very difficult. Religion plays a significant part in Pi's life. Having to choose between the three would take time. He would have to decide what would be the best for his life. One would think that religion is trusting, allowing him to be a part of all three. Pi is somewhat of a religion collector, and became a practicing Hindu, Islam, and Christian.…

    • 697 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays