Animals in Life of Pi

Piscine Molitor Patel is stranded on a lifeboat with a vicious tiger, a deadly hyena, a motherly orangutan, and a hopeless zebra. You think death would be imminent for Pi, but Pi uses his knowledge to battle these animals. Yann Martel puts the animal’s traits into Pi‘s emotions in his book Life of Pt’. The animals on the lifeboat share a greater meaning than the obstacles in his survival, each one shares different emotions that play a key part into this story.

Emotions such as fear, hate, and humanity all play a part in the animals. Some emotions stand in the way of Pi’s survival and in order to survive he must battle these emotions by overcoming them. The animals on Pi’s lifeboat represent the conflicting emotions he experiences as he fights to survive. Pi’s fear of death is portrayed through Richard Parker who gives him the instinct to survive. His first experience with a tiger was when his father showed Pi one of the most dangerous animals in the 200.

When Pi was a young boy, in his family zoo, Pi ‘s father established this fear by showing his kids what happens to a goat when a tiger is hungry. By showing his kids the dangerous side to a tiger it teaches Pi to never go near tigers and what they are capable of doing. Evidence for this is Pi’s comment, “Ravi was right. Truly I was to be the next goat, I had a wet, trembling, half-drowned, heaving and coughing three-year-old adult bengal tiger in my lifeboat.

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” This quote describes how Pi has feared tigers since he was little and that death was inevitable, When Pi admits, “Truly I was to be the next goat.” he is thinking back to his childhood and reminiscing on the fear the tiger had brought him. But hes not a miserable goat but he is smarter which allows him to survive, Pi comments, “He might not be afraid of the sea when he was driven mad by hunger and thirst, but for the time being it was a fear I could rely on,.. And so it came to be: Plan number seven: keep him alive.”

This quote is an example of Richard Parker giving Pi an instinct to survive. By stating “Plan number seven: keep him alive,” he is referring back to six plans he makes that are key to his survival. Pi has to keep Richard Parker alive because when Pi feeds it he is creating a bond with the tiger giving it a reason to not eat Pi, like one of the goats. The Orangutan symbolizes Pi‘s empathy and humanity to others. When OJ the female Orangutan comes aboard the lifeboat, Pi notes she appears sick. In this quote Pi realizes how human-like 0] really is. She is a key animal in this book and appears to be a protagonist to Pi. Pi comments, “And Orange Juice had not only cheered me up; she had also taken on both our feelings of seasickness.” This next quote is an example of OJ as an ally to Pi. Being trapped on a lifeboat with two vicious animals to worry about and the thought that your entire family is gone, Pi finally has a something .

Eventually this positive comes to an end in a way that even takes away from Pi mentally. The actions of the hyena symbolize the hate in Pi. Since the beginning the hyena has symbolized some sort of hate and danger to Pi. His first action when the hyena killed the orangutan broke a large piece off of Pi’s soul. “The neck wound was still bleeding. It was a sight horrible to the eyes and killing to the spirit”. This quote is an example of how hateful the hyena could be. After killing what Pi had loved so dearly it brought immediate hate towards the hyena. “Blood started coming out its nostrils. Once or twice it reared its head straight up, as if appealing to heaven–the abomination of the moment was perfectly expressed.

” After the hyena killed the zebra the hyena was showing its true emotion it brought to Pi. Hatred for this beast is strongly portrayed in this quote After killing two allies to Pi this will generate hate for this animal. Fear, hate, and humanity are all emotions that the animals portrayed on Pi‘s journey. Richard Parker is an example of Fear. The Orangutan is an example of humanity, and the hyena is an example of hate Since an emotion is represented in each animal does this also stretch beyond the lifeboat? Pi’s family owned a zoo when he was young and from previous talks about his childhood he describes key animals with great detail Pl has a specific emotion for each animal, the better he knew each animal the greater the emotion.