Courage In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

Courage in “Life of Pi”
“The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar. It was natural that, bereft and desperate as I was, in the throes of unremitting suffering, I should turn to God.”(pg. 283-284) In the “life of Pi” by Yann Martel, Pi possesses several characteristics allowing him to survive his long, epic journey across the Pacific Ocean. His great determination pushed him to the brink and his hopes in God helped him soar and constantly fought despair. Pi practiced his pious ways and his hopes soared as he prayed to God. Also, the castaway's immense knowledge of animals saved his life; it permitted him to cope with Richard Parker, the 450-pound Bengal Tiger trapped on the lifeboat with him. It also helped him find ways to capture and nourish
himself on other animals.
Finally, Pi's vast imagination kept his mind busy and focused throughout his life so he can accomplish amazing feats and with the help of the three religions: Christianity, Muslim and Hinduism. Pi uses courage to help him survive the sinking of the Tsimtsum, his belief in god made him have confidence to survive on the lifeboat for 277 days and a few days on the carnivorous island where the algae turns acidic and kills anything living like when Richard Parker kept going back to the lifeboat before nighttime and how the lemurs slept in the trees rather than staying underground. When Pi lost his family he was permanently scarred for life. His family and orange juice were all gone just sad memories like when pi stated on 2.37.11 “And what of my extended family – birds, beasts, and reptiles? They too have drowned. Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I
am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven? In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard Parker?” he means that all his family and the zoo animals have all been wiped out everyone except Richard Parker who has struggled to survive along with Pi until he left him after walking away and ending up in the forests of Mexico never to be seen again. When Pi gets thrown into a life boat he immediately figures out that he is not alone because there is a zebra that just came down falling from the sky, a hyena peeking behind the tarpaulin and a Tiger just underneath the tarpaulin at that moment when he realizes that there are more dangers than just sharks in the water, he turns to god and prays eventually the zebra died and got eaten by the hyena and the hyena got eaten by Richard Parker, reducing the amount of dangers by a huge amount only leaving the tiger his high amount of courage kept him going through all those hard time and suffering with the animals. Pi shows mental courage when he left the carnivorous island because the island was more mentally dangerous than physically dangerous so when Pi leaves the island he is sacrificing his physical pains so that he won't lose the will to live which has kept him alive for so long and let his mental strength die. The quotation "I preferred to set off and perish in search of my own kind than to live a lonely half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous island."(Martel, 361). With his courage, Pi manages to substitute his lack of human interaction on the lifeboat with the vicious tiger. He has no human or other human to support him. During his time spent with the tiger, Pi realizes that the tiger is struggling as well, and they are in the same boat. Pi believed in many religions. During the periods on the lifeboat when all hope seemed lost, Pi prayed to the gods of his faiths and asked them for aid. His belief in a higher power settled his mind and gave Pi something to hold on to and belive in when survival seemed slim