Cooperation and Competition in Life of Pi

In Life ofPi, the author Yann Martel explores storytelling as the bridge to finding ourselves even when facing conflicts. In human society, cooperation and competition mostly oppose one another. When doing a group presentation for a language class, such as Spanish, cooperation is greatly needed in the group. However, cooperation does not necessarily stop competition from happening in the meantime. This point can be illustrated by the same example of doing group work. The teacher gives individual grade based on the individual performance when presenting the project.

Although cooperation and competition are rivals they exist at the same time. Cooperation often happens when one is not able to handle the situation alone.

This point can be illustrated by the first story Pi told in the book. It was about traveling with a group of animals for a long time. The complicated relationship between Pi and all of the animals showed that both cooperation and competition existed at the same time. In the first story, cooperation seemed more obvious than competition.

Pi was thinking about what to do with Richard Parker and he came up with six plans in the beginning The purpose of all of the plans was to get rid of the giant tiger. However, Pi changed his mind quickly after Richard Parker gave him “a puff through the nose to express friendliness and harmless intentions. Pi realized “it was Richard Parker who calmed [him] down”. He decided to have a plan seven which was to “Keep Him A!ive” because he felt being “left alone with despair, [was] a foe even more formidable than a tiger”(Martel 164).

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As said, cooperation was the major point of the first story.

Pi chose cooperation over competition in the end, nonetheless, competition existed The competition in the first story is caused by the “selfish hunger for survival”(Martel 120). When Richard Parker could no longer bear his hunger, he emerged from the tarpaulin, and Pi knew immediately that “the hyena‘s end had come”. The hyena did not put up a fight, “it shrank to the floor”(Martel 150} Its reaction was surprising given how aggressive it was with the other animals, Instead of the arrogant look, Pi could see its terror from its face. From reading the description of the hyena’s death, one can see the competition for survival caused by hunger, In short, although cooperation is superior to competition, they must exist at the same time Organisms compete because resources are limited and needs or desires are great In the second story, Pi was traveling with a Chinese sailor, a cook, and his mothers When reading the second story, the sense of competition becomes particularly strong Instead of the competition for survival, this is a competition between evil and justice.

The cook in the story stood for evil, while Pi‘s mother stood forjustjcet The cook ate the sailor’s injured leg and Pi‘s mother called him a monster, an animal, One time Pi’s mother “slapped [the cook] in the face. The cook was stunned and so was Pi. As stated, competition tended to be more obvious than cooperation in the second story Although the evil cook won the competition, he needed the cooperation of mother and Pi in order to be successfult The cook said he “would do the job to save the sailor’s life, but [Pi and his mother] would have to hold him”. Mother and Pi believed the cook so that they “held [the sailor’s] arms while the cook sat on his good leg”(Marte1305)i Obviously, the cook lied. He used the amputated leg as a bait, but he could not have done that without Pi and his mother’s helpt Additionally, Pi and his mother‘s ate the fish that “the cook caught from the sea”.

Pi’s mother, a vegetarian, actually “brought herself to eat raw fish and raw tuttle”(Martel 309) If they refused what the cook caught, they would have starved to death Even if Pi‘s mother hated the evil cook, they still cooperated in order to survive. In short, cooperation still exists no matter how harsh the reality is and how frightening the competition is In conclusion, cooperation and competition exist at the same time even if one is superior to one other, The class discussion of the book illustrates this same point Although we are all trying to talk more and get a better score, we need to keep the balance and talk based on each other’s opinions. According to some comparisons we did after class, the person who tried to draw other people into the discussion gets a better grade. As we can see, cooperation and competition exist at the same time. Surprisingly, they work really well together.