Life of Pi

Authors note: By having these discussions throughout class it has helped me comprehend the material in Life of Pi. This piece reflects on how Pi is feeling and the trust he has for Mr. Krumar.

Trust

Pi respects Mr. Krumar as well as his beliefs that there is no God. Before he met him he obeyed everything he was told  just to please everyone else, not himself. By trusting his teacher and not listening to what  everyone has told him he is taking the leap of faith, putting trust in others and what he thinks. Mr. Krumar puts all faith in his senses, therefore having a faith in science, although he does not believe in a God, he believes in himself physically, and that was good enough excuse for Pi to put trust in him.

Discuss any of Pi's specific behaviors in the last section

Authors Note: On page 240 Pi talks about going blind, having a peaceful death, and how he feels he has failed in life. Insanity has come over him but it causes him to think about life in a different way, the voice he thinks is a figment of his imagination but later realizes it is real pulling him back to reality, making him sane again.

Over 227 days you have been stranded, but the days do not matter, time no longer has an affect on you. You've been sitting here on this raft no food, no water, and on the verge of death. The only company you have is a tiger who is like a brother, but other than that, life has turned into complete isolation. Insanity has swallowed you whole and you peacefully await death.

After hundreds of days of being stranded with little food, little water, and near isolation, Pi is going insane. On the verge of death he feels as though he has failed, Richard Parker, himself, and as a zoo keeper. He behaves like he is the only person on Earth and when a voice is heard he disregards it and thinks it is a figment of his imagination. Insanity has gotten the best of him physically, mentally, and emotionally. This voice says that he has killed two people, a man and a women. Pi is stunned and knows that what this man did was wrong, stating that there is some sanity we find when there is a decision between right and wrong.

In life there are many twists and turns in the road but only the important one's stick out. Insanity is one of those important turns and causes us to think about how we lived our life in ways we never could have imagined , through hallucination, figments of our imagination, and our memories. Who is to tell us what is right and wrong but ourselves, and when we go insane we can't tell the difference. Pi truly isn't insane if he can tell that the voice he is hearing has done something wrong and he finally realizes that this voice is real, pulling him back to reality.



Pain and Death


author's note: Throughout this essay some struggles that I had were finding the words to describe what I was feeling and defining my terms, people write novels about these topics so to write an essay and to put all of my thoughts in was tough. Also the length of the essay was  short, I got somewhat confused on how to put in all of my thoughts without sounding like I didn't know what I was talking about which resulted in a short essay. What I like about this piece is my description in the narrative, I think it shows how Pi felt and how death and pain are huge influences on who we are. Overall, I think this essay is OK.

   Without death life would be meaningless. If we lived forever and there was no time limit, there wouldn't be a purpose, everything on our bucket lists would just be pointless words on a piece of paper. Without pain, happiness would be non-existent because every moment we share would be the same and we would live without determination, the strive for excellence. Friedrich Nietzsche once said, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger", this quote is one of truth, each painful moment we experience, we should embrace because you never know which moment will be your last. The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel was the perfect example of  the influence pain and death has on our lives.

  

   Throughout this novel death seemed to be the one thing keeping Pi sane. Day after day on that lifeboat the one and only thing he could think about was death and how it would put an end to his misery. Sailing on the ocean was a symbol of Pi sailing through life with the pain of starvation, isolation, and near insanity.  Pain and death, the two things that we fear most in life were what kept Pi alive. God gave him a second chance when he arrived on the shores of Mexico, without the fear of death and the pain he went through he would have lost motivation and hope.

  

   Pain is necessary for our lives to be meaningful.  Each day for Pi to survive he had to go through a painful experience for him - killing animals. Pi believed that killing animals was sac-religious, but knew that to ensure the survival of Richard Parker and himself, he had to do it. Richard Parker, the tiger, seemed to have no problem killing animals, once the boat crashed in the ocean he killed the all of animals but the most helpless one, Pi. Throughout the novel Pi treated him like family and in the end Richard Parker was a symbol of the other side of Pi, the more animal like side of him. Pain was kept Pi alive and without it he would have died alone.

  

   The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel proved that in our life pain and death make our lives meaningful, and gives us a purpose. Each person was born for a reason, pain makes them stronger and shows who they truly are in the worst of times. Death reminds us of the time limit that we have on Earth and to live each moment to the fullest. Pi experienced pain throughout the novel and learned who he was as well as who he wanted to be.  Without pain he would have been lost in the ocean of life.