Yesterday in class, we discussed how the two Mr. Kumars' visit to the zoo and interaction with the zebra highlighted the discussion in the text of the necessary and legitimate balance of the rational and irrational. There are many scenes in the text that can be analyzed this closely.
Pick a specific scene (remember from our narrative writing that a scene takes place in one setting and in one very short period of time) and analyze it closely. Support your insights and argument with specific textual support (with, of course, citations). Don't tell us what happens in the scene--we all can read. Instead, tell us what the scene MEANS.
One of the most powerful scenes in "Life of Pi" so far has been Pi falling off the boat into the lifeboat. At the very beginning of part two, Pi is describing what is going on around him, but it does not say why or how the ship sank, it just says in the very first line of the chapter, "The ship sank." (121 Ch. 37). I like how this is written because I can feel how quickly things are happening around Pi, that one second he is sleeping with his family in the ship, to another on a lifeboat with a Zebra. The entire first part of the book is centered around Pi love for all different religions, and his love for his family. And right as that ship starts to sink, and Pi has to climb into that life boat all of that is taken away from him. There are no more prayer rugs, loving priests, or mystic bakers, but also there is no more Mom, Dad, or Ravi. Pi describes the lose of his family, "Tell me I'm still happy. Mother, my tender guardian angel of wisdom, where are you? And you, father, my loving worrywart? And you Ravi, dazzling hero of my childhood? Vishnu preserve me, Allah protect me, Christ save me. I can't bear it." (122 Ch. 37).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Zack. The question that remains however, is if Pi will remember his faith and family on the boat. I think he will keep it but, I wonder whether he uses his faith or own willpower to overcome adversity. People are saying and commenting "God will get me through this." I find it funny considering God is the one who put you in a sticky situation in the first place. I'm curious to see whether God gets Pi through his survival or if Pi gets Pi through it. People often mistake great human thinking, willpower, bravery, and ideas as miracles.
DeleteI like your idea about how before the boat Pi had all his religious items, but that after the boat all of these things were taken from him. I just think you should revise it a little his physical religion was taken away, prayer rug etc., but his spiritually religion stayed strong. Not once have I read about him questioning his faith while on the boat for example the words: "God why have you forsaken me." A typical phrase used when people feel that they are without God. I actually have heard him praying to God more on the boat than he was off of it.
DeleteGreat Analyses Zack!
On page 142-143, Pi quenches his thirst when he finds the survival pack under the tarpaulin. This scene stood out to me as more than just Pi finding water. I recognized the moment as a key turning point for Pi's survival because up until this point, he does not actually believe that he is going to walk out of this situation alive. In fact, Pi's spirit has been nearly dead until this scene. It is evident that Pi is "reborn" when he says, "Strength and suppleness came back to my muscles. My head became clearer. Truly, I was coming back to life from the dead," (143). After this glimmer of hope, Pi has gained confidence. This is the most essential thing to prevail over such adversity because without the belief in his own abilities, he will have a significantly less chance of survival. As a reader, I now understand how Pi is able to step on land once again.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I felt that the scene where Pi acknowledges his parents' deaths is very powerful. Martel writes: "They were dead; I could no longer deny it," (127). This is a big moment for Pi because he accepts the tradgedy and simply moves on. This shows Pi's incredible mental toughness. If this were me, I know I would be grieving for a very long time, but Pi seems to lock the memory of his family out of his mind within the span of five minutes. From now on, the reader knows that Pi can pull through anything, no matter how difficult it may be to bear.
ReplyDeleteIn the scene where the boat is sinking was my favorite in the book. It was where he realizes he’s all on his own now. He knew once the boat was sinking he couldn’t get his mom and the crew began to throw him overboard with the life boat. But I don’t think it was until he was hanging out of the life boat trying not to be eaten by the tiger that it all sunk in. It’s something you can’t imagine unless you’re in the situation. Pi was alone with no one but animals all around him trying to kill him. You can’t blame the animals though because just like him they are also trying to survive. “The men were nodding vigorously at me. When they took hold of me and lifted me I thought nothing of it. I thought they were helping me. I was so full of trust in them that I felt grateful as they carried me in the air. Only when they threw me overboard did I begin to have doubts” (105). This was the biggest shift in the book. This is my favorite quote in the book because it makes you re read it and thinks wait I thought he was getting helped and going to survive. I liked how Pi thought everything was going to be okay and gave them all his trust as they were actually going to just throw him overboard. You can look at it two ways though. If they wouldn’t have thrown him off the boat he would have died anyways but they also threw him into almost a death trap into the cold ocean with sharks surrounding him and a tiger on his life boat. Some if got the chance might just take the quicker death instead of the small chance of life while having to suffer. Although a life boat with 93 days of food and 124 days of water seems easily survivable it’s not the same when you have hungry animals around you.
ReplyDeletePi is irrational when he talks about thirst is worse than not being able to breathe. Pi says, “I have heard that the hunger for air exceeds as a compelling sensation the thirst for water. Only for a few minutes, I say. After a few minutes you die and the discomfort of asphyxiation goes away. Whereas thirst is a drawn-out affair” (135). He is saying that thirst is worse than not being able to breathe because he says it continues when you die. He is being irrational because if you really think about it, you cannot possibly live without air. We are humans and we need air in order to live. Air comes before water. Pi is only saying that because at this moment he is breathing in fresh air and is really thirsty. If Pi were being suffocated of air, he would definitely be saying that having no air to breathe is the worst because you can’t last more than a few seconds without air. Pi is thinking about it in religious terms. Religion is irrational; therefore Pi is being irrational at this moment.
ReplyDeleteThirst symbolizes Pi's troubling thought that he is going die on this boat. The reason why he says that thirst is the worst way to die is because he knows that unless he finds water, there is nothing he can do. Knowing that he cannot prevent this diminishes his hopes for survival. “I had to drink now-or I would die"(178). Being surrounded by water that he cannot drink destroys Pi on the inside because unlike air , which kills in moments, thirst kills slowly kills inside. “I have never known a worse physical hell than this putrid taste and pasty feeling in the mouth…, this sensation that my blood was turning to a thick syrup that barely flowed”(170). Pi knows that it will be a miracle if he survives, because he is either going to die of thirst or by Richard Parker. Yann Martel’s cleaver naming of Richard Parker's given name was symbolizes how although there are many ways Pi could die on the boat, the two main ones on his mind are dying of Thirst and dying because of Thirsty. This shows how even though death can be caused by many things it only leads to one result.
DeleteThirsty! I hadn't thought of that, Pamela! So smart!
DeleteThere are three scenes that demonstrate Pi's ignorance in his situation at sea. On page 112 Pi is just climbing on the life boat and is surrounded by bananas just floating in the sea. Of course there must have been a million thing going through Pi's head, but at a very young age humans are tough they need three things to survive: food, water and shelter, and food was at the time in abundance, but Pi did not take any of it. He did not grab a single banana, "No. Not a single one"(112). Pi also demonstrates this sheer ignorance and rash decision making on page 142 when Pi drinks four cans of water. "I drank four cans, two liters of that most exquisite of nectars before I stopped"(142). Pi also does this with the food he finds on the next two pages. Pi ate "half a kilo" of the biscuits which was a good chunk of the rations he had. It astonished me how wasteful Pi was. He clearly knew he was not going to be saved any time soon and would need to preserve the food for as long as he could, but when he first got it he devoured three times as much as he should of. I know Pi was in desperate conditions, but in desperate conditions you should make the most reasonable decisions you can. Pi certainly did not make any reasonable decisions regarding life's necessities.
ReplyDeleteJack Parker
DeleteMs. Gahan
Honors World Lit
4 December 2012
You said your point well, but I would like to state another opinion. While not grabbing the bananas at sea was very wasteful, and could be harmful in the long run, the immediate danger was most likely the sharks as well as extreme exhaustion and shock. Later in your argument you said he was ignorant by drinking too much water and eating too much food, but the average human can only live for three days without water, and Pi spent at least three days on this lifeboat with the sun beating down on him, so I think it was a good idea that he drank a good amount of water, since otherwise he might have died right there. In the future there might also be obstacles to getting the water, possibly when the tiger gets hungrier. “My head became clearer. Truly, I was coming back to life from the dead” (143). I think he totally knew what his body needed, as there are immediate issues that are more important than the long run issues, so it’s probably good that now he can think clearly again.
Jack Parker
DeleteMs. Gahan
Honors World Lit
4 December 2012
You said your point well, but I would like to state another opinion. While not grabbing the bananas at sea was very wasteful, and could be harmful in the long run, the immediate danger was most likely the sharks as well as extreme exhaustion and shock. Later in your argument you said he was ignorant by drinking too much water and eating too much food, but the average human can only live for three days without water, and Pi spent at least three days on this lifeboat with the sun beating down on him, so I think it was a good idea that he drank a good amount of water, since otherwise he might have died right there. In the future there might also be obstacles to getting the water, possibly when the tiger gets hungrier. “My head became clearer. Truly, I was coming back to life from the dead” (143). I think he totally knew what his body needed, as there are immediate issues that are more important than the long run issues, so it’s probably good that now he can think clearly again.
Jack Parker
ReplyDeleteMs. Gahan
Honors World Literature
4 December 2012
There are a few scenes that strike me the most. When he goes underneath the tarpaulin to search for food and most importantly water is the first scene that I found interesting. While he is horrified of what the tiger could do to him, he knows that unless he gets the food and water, he will surely die out a much slower, painful death. “’God preserve me!’” (140). Pi was staring at the enormous tiger from two feet away, but he went on to look for the food and water, showing that he knows what has to be done for his survival on the ship, even if that means braving a tiger and hyena. I found it interesting how once Pi was over the need for food and water that the fear of the tiger grew, since he realized how dangerous that being with a tiger really is. Once Pi isn’t on the edge of death from thirst and starvation, other things start becoming more important, as it would with any human being. If you were not about to die from starvation, you wouldn’t likely go out for food if a tiger is around. Pi has realized the priorities of life and the tiger was second when it comes to starvation and thirst. “I awoke to the reality of Richard Parker. There was a tiger in the lifeboat. I could hardly believe it, yet I knew I had to. And I had to save myself” (147). Pi almost considered leaving the food and water on the raft to try to swim away, but that would mean certain death as exhaustion and sharks would likely be the end of Pi long before the tiger would come after him. Once Pi has regained his life from the food and water, he almost made an awful decision that could have killed him before the tiger would. “Oncoming death is terrible enough, but worse still is oncoming death with time to spare, time in which all the happiness that was yours and all the happiness that might have been yours becomes clear to you” (147). Here Pi thinks to himself how bad it is to sit and wait while death is coming, and it is bad to know that death is coming, but Pi could only sit and think about that if the threat of death is not immediately overhead. Pi only started thinking about what could have been his when he wasn’t focused on braving the tiger and getting much needed food and water, since before he didn’t have time to think about such things, or he would likely be dead already.
Rainer Geis
ReplyDeleteMrs. Gahan
Honors World Literature
4 December 2012
The scene in which Pi talks about how the orangutan cannot defeat the hyena is extremely important because the moral of this scene is mandatory for Pi's survival. In this scene, the hyena decides to attack the orangutan. As the hyena pounces upon the simian, the canine is met with a fierce blow to the head. However, by the end of the battle the hyena manages to kill the gigantic and strong female orangutan. This orangutan was physically stronger than the hyena, but it could not defeat the hyena for one particular reason. The orangutan did not have the right mindset. The way the ape was raised prevented it from being able to know how to use its big teeth and long arms. The hyena was born a predator and knew exactly where to bite down onto the orangutan. This shows that "what it comes down to is attitude and knowledge" (130). In the wild and to a certain extent, it does not matter how strong one is. What matters is how well one knows how to survive and appear dominant. This is important for Pi because since Pi is not strong at all, he will need to know how to appear strong and dominant against Richard Parker and the hyena. Pi will not survive for very long if he does not have the will to survive.
I agree with Rainer that a good mindset is the best quality any character could have in this novel. Pi especially needs a good mindset because he needs to appear confident and strong in front of Richard Parker in order to survive. As we learned in chapter 57, Pi will but plan seven into action and try to live with and tame Richard Parker. To tame Richard Parker Pi must have a positive attitude and a fearless demeanor. He must stand up to Richard Parker unlike the Hyena. Pi has to dictate his relationship with Richard Parker to survive, and to dictate the relationship Pi must have the right mindset.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAn especially enlightening scene was first time Richard Parker emerged from his den; the adjectives that Martel used to describe the tiger provided much insight into Pi’s religious versus rational beliefs. On page 151 through 152 (chapter 53), Pi uses key words to imply the majesty and perfection of Richard Parker, even going as far as to portray him as a god. Words such as “art,” “grace,” “beautiful,” “harmony,” “pure,” “perfect,” “lustre,” and “radiance” create an aura of idealism around Richard Parker that shocks Pi into submission. Not only the sheer size and ferocity of the tiger intimidate Pi, but the realization of perfection in Richard Parker’s form and creation remind Pi that he is only a mortal and constantly at the mercy of God, much as the living being Pi is at the mercy of this dangerous tiger.
ReplyDeleteShortly after, however, Martel suddenly switches the mood of this description from one of idealism to one of realism by bringing Pi and the reader back to the harsh reality: he is stuck on a boat with a tiger. Words and phrases with which Martel describes Richard Parker in a much more realistic sense include “intense,” “cold,” “unflinching,” “not flighty or friendly,” “self-possession,” and “exploding with rage.” A God would not have these qualities; a God is loving, pure, and perfect to all His creations. It is man who is unflinching, intense, and cold.
Pi’s love for God is an irrational trait, for it is not supported by much science or reason, but the first analysis that Pi makes of Richard Parker uses this irrational belief. Pi begins by seeing Richard Parker as a creature of lustre and radiance: one ideally represented as a god, but rationality takes root, shifting the focus of Pi’s observations and leading him to the severity of the situation at hand. Pi has lost his entire family, and the only one he believes he can turn to is God. By using his religious beliefs to describe Richard Parker, Pi demonstrates that his religions have become instinct, and reason takes much more time to establish itself, thus reversing the logical path of rationality to irrationality. God becomes fact and reason becomes clouded.