Life of Pi Essay

Here in Life of Pi the protagonist’s struggle for survival in the middle of an unheedful ocean is done in a tone that echoes the sound of a well-written work of fiction being read out aloud. Life of Pi is a story about struggling to survive through seemingly insurmountable odds. The shipwrecked inhabitants of the little lifeboat don’t simply concede to their fate: they actively fight against it. The human mind is an amazing instrument. In the face of the horrors of life, it creates a magical story that allows it to continue living with truths otherwise might not be able to accept. The struggle for existence, the struggle for survival, and the inner strength we have to find and tame before we can become master of our existence, are all realities which we have difficulty admitting. The struggle is with a young male that is vegetarian and Richard Parker is the capitalist within himself that he must struggle to overcome so he can be free to live the way he wants to, as a totally tolerant of all things vegetarian in Canada. While Pi has been starving, and the fish offer a sudden abundance of food, Pi–being a vegetarian–won’t eat the fish because it violates his beliefs, but his struggle to â€Å"dominate† Richard Parker is the dominating of his appetites. The food Pi has been eating from the lifeboat supply is destroyed by the tail of the whale, demonstrating the importance of food in the film, and how Pi learns he can’t survive on just earthly food, or just heavenly food, but that he needs both, Pi abandons his lifelong vegetarianism and eats the fish to sustain himself. Summing up the emotion behind the struggle Pi encountered, while he was on the boat, Pi states, â€Å"My face set to a grim and determined expression. I speak in all modesty as I say this, but I discovered at that moment that I have a fierce will to live. It’s not something evident, in my experience. Some of us give up on life with only a resigned sigh. Others fight a little, then lose hope. Still others–and I am one of those–never give up. We fight and fight and fight. We fight no matter the cost of battle, the losses we take the improbability of success. We fight to the very end. It’s not a question of courage. It’s something constitutional, an inability to let go. † (Martel 164) This quote is inspirational and relates to Pi’s personality. Despite the fact that he faced many struggles throughout the novel (majorly part 2), he managed to remain optimistic and determined to find a way to escape. In most cases, a person would have just given up under the circumstances he fell under, but Pi had faith in getting off the ship and finding land. He never gave up despite the fact that he knew that he’d never see his family again, and he had to survive for 227 days with a ferocious tiger, and little food. The odds against his survival were prominently against his favor, but that didn’t stop him. He had to overcome his fear of killing animals in his struggle for survival. Pi went from hesitating to kill a fish, to becoming comparable to a professional fisherman. Although there were many thoughts going through his head to just jump off the boat and put an end to everything, his perseverance overcame his doubt and he did anything possible to survive. Personally I can see myself saying what Pi stated. I’m a determined individual, and if I really want something, I will go to great lengths to get what I want.