“We all get lost sometimes and we forget who we are”(Jessica Mauboy). People are willing to give up their identity because society has led them to believe that they must conform to survive. In Lord of the Flies the children lose sight of who they really are so they can belong to Jack’s group; likewise, at Cherry Creek kids will often completely change who they are in order to be part of the popular group. As the story progresses, Jack and the hunters become savages “whose image refused to blend with that ancient picture of a boy in shorts and shirt” to gain the benefits of food and protection (Golding 183). During the book, the kids have an awakening after they accidentally kill Simon and have to contemplate whether they are “humans? Or…
The concept of belonging illustrates the physical and spiritual concerns of the human condition. These Notions…
Life is either an adventure or nothing. An adventure novel, Treasure island, written by Robert Louis Stevenson and a Canadian novel, Life of Pi, written by Yann Marte both talk about transformation of young teenagers through adventures. In Life of Pi, The adventure of the protagonist – Pi – is seeking for survival on Pacific Ocean, but in Treasure Island, the adventure of the protagonist – Jims Hawkins – is looking for treasure on a mysterious island. Although Life of Pi and Treasure Island have different types of adventures, both novels develop the theme that young men come of age in adventures through…
White slave owners in the American South during the 18th and 19th centuries often attempted to make their slaves lose their identity through a variety of means. They did this to empower themselves over the blacks, as the blacks would no longer feel like a real person with a unique and individual identity. Although the patterns of white dominance over blacks have not disappeared over time, they have changed in this regard. In the 1900s, blacks were finally express their own identity, and were not held back by whites. The play “A Raisin in the Sun,” by Lorraine Hansberry, exemplifies this. The play only provides a glimpse into the life of the Younger family and those they interact with, as it takes place over a short period of time. However,…
Life of Pi is an intriguing story about a young indian boy named Pi, who embarks on an incredible journey across the Pacific ocean from India to Canada on a lifeboat. On his adventure, Pi is forced to confront and overcome the most daunting of obstacles and face some of the toughest survival tasks, all while accompanied by a 450 pound bengal tiger. His perspective of the tiger changes over the course of the book, and they become emotionally attached to each other. When the novel began, the tiger, named “Richard Parker,” was one of the challenges that Pi had to overcome. Towards the end however, Richard Parker becomes necessary in order for Pi to survive. In Life of Pi, Richard Parker helps Pi three main ways: physically, mentally, and emotionally.…
One must go on a journey in order to way to find what one is looking for and achieve self discovery. Journeys lead to the discovery of knowledge about the world around oneself and discover answers to questions about life. In Life of Pi, Pi learns to understand that reality is merely an interpretation of our faith. Pi’s journey of finding his faith was, in the most part, conducted whilst at sea with Richard Parker. This can be seen in Part 3 of the novel, where Pi is interviewed by officials from the Japanese ship company. “The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no… which is the better story?” His tone of voice conveys maturity and general understanding of life, unlike the rest of the novel. The change in the type of language used implies that Pi has gained knowledge about his faith and how he’d rather believe his story about Richard Parker than what may be the actual truth of his physical journey at sea.…
In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, he explores how the human belief system can be mutated and misinterpreted due to different perspectives. The way Martel exposes a common faith is by incorporating opposites. Martel incorporates opposites throughout the novel to portray that what is believed to be different on the surface is actually the same underneath, as can be seen by the two Mr. Kumar’s, Pi and Richard Parker, and the two opposing stories.…
In “Life of Pi”, by Yann Martel, Pi had to overcome emotional obstacles in order to survive his 227 days in the Pacific. Pi faced challenges that would have prevented his physical survival; hesitation, loneliness, despair and boredom. These obstacles would have crippled his mind if he did not conquer them. Pi not only overcomes these obstacles to survive the journey, but takes away valuable lessons from his experience. In order to face the challenges that were presented to him, Pi had to face the imperfections within himself.…
Siddhartha tells the story of a man searching for peace; Life of Pi captivates the life of a boy trying to comprehend the world around him. Both protagonists, Siddhartha and Piscine Patel, use a type of “guess-and-check” system while venturing through the world. Throughout his lifetime, Siddhartha is a Brahmin, Samana, businessman, and ferryman. Meanwhile Piscine as a young boy tries to follow three different religions at the same time. Looking at the world through different perspectives taught both Siddhartha and Pi how to live and understand life.…
Civilization separates humans from animals and allow them to develop intelligence, however when civilization disintegrates, one's identity degrades and consequently, one resorts to a primitive nature. In the novel, Lord of the Flies, degeneration of society results in the loss of identify because of the dispossession of names, deterioration of physical appearance and the deviation of personality.…
Martel's "The Life of Pi" is a coming of age story about a young man's reaching maturity through tragic but uplifting story of loss and miraculous survival. The story is based on a journey which contains adventure, tradgedy, humour, and also the survival of the fittest mentality. Yann Martel depicts a story of a youth who seeks knowledge, wisdom, connectivity, and spirituality through religeon and zoology. Applying the craft's he has practiced and is taught, protagonist Pi Patel seeks survival on a stranded boat with an orrangatang, a tiger, an injured zebra and a hyena.…
Human, animal, plants, and all the Earth’s content is survivor. They are fighting for their rights in order to live in this beautiful world. The novel Life of Pi written by Yann Martel, has employed a lot of symbols that is related to the life. One of the most significant symbols is the color orange. The author uses orange as a symbol of maintenance of the spirit to survive in survival. This can be proved as most of the objects that are in the color orange in the novel generate feelings of hope, can develop courage in survivors, and last but not least can keep them continuously energetic; in order to strengthen their hearts and spirits to face all the possibilities in life.…
In the book, “Life of Pi”, I believe Martel was aiming to express the importance of understanding that life is a story. The example of the two different stories at the end is to convey how human beings have different ways of identifying the truth in a story. Pi shows us this when he says “I know what you want. You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won’t make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality”(Martel 302). Martel is trying to convey the message, how one human may understand a story can be totally different from how the other sees it.…
Life of Pi is told in first person and because he is the only narrator, readers see what he does; the problem is, Pi’s reactions and over simplistic method of analyzing events are unrealistic. When readers find the narrator’s voice to be unrealistic, they question the book’s validity and in turn the author’s point in creating a character that is untrustworthy. There are many, many examples in the Life of Pi where Pi forces us to step out of the pages and twist our heads in a position that signals “really?” I argue that Pi is an unreliable narrator and because of that, the book is not represented as well as it could have been if the story was told from a third person omniscient point of view.…
There are two views of existentialism, that of the more popular atheistic view, and that of the theistic view (Sartre Lecture). In the book Life of Pi, by Yann Martel the main theme of the book is religion, with the main character being of multiple religions: Hinduism, Christian Catholicism, and Islam. (Martel). Life of Pi is both Existentialist and non-existentialist, in both the atheistic and theistic views because of specific religious beliefs, abandonment of religion, despair, and the ultimate use of human instinct for survival.…