The remarkable journey of Pi Patel, the protagonist of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi, and the unexpected relationship he forms with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, makes even the most difficult struggles in life seem conquerable. Piscine, also known as "Pi" was only sixteen years old when his family decides to move from India to Canada by crossing the Pacific Ocean by boat. However, the boat, unbeknownst to the passengers, begins to sink in the night, leaving Pi stranded in a lifeboat as he watches the ship, and his family, sink into the depths of the ocean. To add to his predicament, Pi discovers that he is accompanied by a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a ferocious Bengal tiger. While Pi manages to stay on the opposite side of the boat for the first few nights, he knows that given time, he will become the predator's next prey. Despite the dismal circumstances, Pi remains optimistic, and instead of dreading his inevitable death, he recognizes that if he wants to live, he has to establish his dominance over the animals and gain their trust. After the animals fight for territory, Pi is left with only Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger to train and earn his companionship. As time progresses, Pi realizes that the relationship he forms with Richard Parker is what gives him the motivation to continue his struggle to survive. Overall, this novel was full of symbols, irony and various other literary devices that helped to engage the reader, and although the plot may seem unrealistic from a brief summary, the sequence of events that the author develops and the perspective from which the story is told makes it very believable. There were certain parts of the novel that I felt contained rather gruesome imagery that I wish had not been included, because it detracted from the magnificence of the story and makes me not really want to watch the movie because of these scenes. I additionally felt that the ending was rather abrupt and did not convey how Pi would resume his life after he is rescued, which I did not particularly care for since so much of the book concerns Pi’s prior life in India and then for the greater majority, his life on the boat. The organization of these two parts left me expecting and ending that would be similar in length to his life in India, which it unfortunately was not. Being that this novel was read for school, I felt it was one of the better novels required in comparison to some of the other options, and I would therefore recommend it to other students going into English 11.
The remarkable journey of Pi Patel, the protagonist of Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi, and the unexpected relationship he forms with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, makes even the most difficult struggles in life seem conquerable. Piscine, also known as "Pi" was only sixteen years old when his family decides to move from India to Canada by crossing the Pacific Ocean by boat. However, the boat, unbeknownst to the passengers, begins to sink in the night, leaving Pi stranded in a lifeboat as he watches the ship, and his family, sink into the depths of the ocean. To add to his predicament, Pi discovers that he is accompanied by a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a ferocious Bengal tiger. While Pi manages to stay on the opposite side of the boat for the first few nights, he knows that given time, he will become the predator's next prey. Despite the dismal circumstances, Pi remains optimistic, and instead of dreading his inevitable death, he recognizes that if he wants to live, he has to establish his dominance over the animals and gain their trust. After the animals fight for territory, Pi is left with only Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger to train and earn his companionship. As time progresses, Pi realizes that the relationship he forms with Richard Parker is what gives him the motivation to continue his struggle to survive. Overall, this novel was full of symbols, irony and various other literary devices that helped to engage the reader, and although the plot may seem unrealistic from a brief summary, the sequence of events that the author develops and the perspective from which the story is told makes it very believable. There were certain parts of the novel that I felt contained rather gruesome imagery that I wish had not been included, because it detracted from the magnificence of the story and makes me not really want to watch the movie because of these scenes. I additionally felt that the ending was rather abrupt and did not convey how Pi would resume his life after he is rescued, which I did not particularly care for since so much of the book concerns Pi’s prior life in India and then for the greater majority, his life on the boat. The organization of these two parts left me expecting and ending that would be similar in length to his life in India, which it unfortunately was not. Being that this novel was read for school, I felt it was one of the better novels required in comparison to some of the other options, and I would therefore recommend it to other students going into English 11.
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