In the early stages of Life of Pi, Martel mentions a place that Pi and Ravi had gone to visit while on vacation. While looking aimlessly through the window, they noticed three hills. On top of one hill was a catholic church, another a Hindu temple, and the other a Muslim mosque. Each hill portrays each of the religions in Pi’s complex faith. The hills represent Pi’s struggles to understand each religion. Later on, we find out that Pi is caught in between these three religions. He couldn’t completely disregard any of the religions, so each one kept warring for a place in his life. In How to Read Literature like a Professor, Foster repeatedly says how symbols usually have more than one possible meaning. So another possible meaning for the three hills is that each of the warring religions has a different part in his life. The religions are separated by being on each hill, but they live simultaneously in the same general area. Just as, in Pi’s life, each religion has its separate area of his mind, but they all partake in his life.…
The book Life of Pi by Yann Martel was published in 2001. The story is primarily about an Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel, who survives a shipwreck with a Bengal tiger. Unfortunately, this book is not a part of a series; the characters in the book do however, have an interesting relationship with the author. Yann Martel is from Canada, as stated in the book. The Patel family was moving to Canada, this is also the place Piscine “lives” currently. Martel got the inspiration from his story in Pondicherry, the originally home of the Patel family. Although the meeting of the two was in a sense ironic, it is still the perfect commencement for this realistic fiction.…
Canadian Literature is literature that is originated from Canada. Canadian literature is based on the commonly used traits: survival, identity, nature, humour, multiculturalism,urban vs. rural, and frontier life. Both Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi and author Alistair MacLeod novel No Great Mischief show the understanding in the various elements of Canadian Literature. More specially the themes identity and survival, but MacLeod’s novel No Great Mischief shows a more thoroughly understanding of Canadian Literature and Canada itself.…
The narrator of this book has his own view about zoos. He tries to make it seem as if his view is absolutely true and is scientifically proven and that he is 100% politically correct. According to him a zoo to an animal is like a home to a human. But I totally disagree with his view on the zoos.…
While reading the book The Life of Pi you come across a ton of themes. There is not just one theme to pick from and the entire book is not just black and white. The Life of Pi is an amazing story about how a young man went against all the odds and survived something that most would see as certain death. The theme that I picked out for this book is the boundaries between humans and animals.…
A controversial topic discussed in society today is about the impact of symbols used within various texts or plays by writers. Many authors use symbols to relate to numerous connections such as cultural beliefs or between the balance of light and dark. Shakespeare and Yann Martel use water as their main symbol throughout their stories to enable the reader to connect his/her emotions with the story. The motif of water plays a significant role in both Macbeth and Life of Pi. In Macbeth, water is shown through its tone on the atmosphere, remorse, and purification. However, in Life of Pi, the motif of water is shown through Pi’s name, and the extended idea.…
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.…
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.…
The first interesting idea that is brought up by this novel is the conflict between religions. In the book this is shown by the arguing of the priest, the monk, and the Muslim man over Pi’s religion. In the novel he is than forced to choose between Catholicism, Hinduism and Islam. In this exact moment, Pi explains that he just wants to love god, and that all three religions preach the same thing which is the love god. By doing this Yann Martel sends a message to that religion wars stop, which I believe is a good idea.…
He reawakens the central power of the story as yarn and legend, as the entertaining narrative told round the camp fire and handed between generations, designed to pass the night hours with captivating drama rather than to deliver political analyses on contemporary society. Life of Pi's printed words have the loud echoes of orality as the text is framed by acts of speech, hearing and translation. In the initial pages, Martel assumes an italicised guise, focusing on the fact that the narrative to follow is one he has heard coincidentally, not deliberately created. He is the eventual author of a story which is not his own but which belongs to Pi, its primary teller; Martel's task is one of translation, not creation, interpretation or even alteration. Likewise, at the close, the child Pi relates his narrative again to two foreign interviewers, who record his words - and their own naive, uncomprehending interpretation of them - on a dictaphone with vicious electronic permanence. The text we read is a solid record of a story which is, in its vocal form, endlessly fluid, subject to change and amendments to increase its interest for a captivated audience. In normal circumstances such self-consciousness about the literary act might challenge the reader,…
To compare the distinctive features of primate parenting, we first need to know what they are. Primate parenting features including, feeding their offspring, along with teaching them vital skills in order for them to obtain their own food. An example of this would be the variety of tool using, or culture, used by several primates (using rocks to crack open nuts, or using a branch to get ants and consume them) not only demonstrate the learning ability of these creatures, but also the importance that parenting has when dealing with the development of the offspring. Apart from the learning behaviors that are thought to the offspring, other distinctive parenting features come into play, for example primates usually give birth to more than one offspring…
Karanvir Dhami Ms. Yu ENG3U March 7, 2011 Symbolism in Life of Pi In Life of Pi there are many literary devices used to present the different themes in the novel. The main literary device used in Life of Pi is symbolism. Symbolism is often used to represent an object to something else, either by association or by resemblance. Most of the names of animals, objects and even humans in this novel have a symbolic meaning. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, symbolism such as pi’s name, the colour orange and the algae island, are used throughout the novel to provide Pi with protection to help him either survive or overcome his emotional pain. The mathematical pi is undefined, infinite and unable to be understood, just like Piscine Patel. Piscine’s nickname is Pi and it has a symbolic relationship with the mathematical pi. Pi is sixteen when he is shipwrecked, and pi is also the sixteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. Not only is the mathematical pi symbolic towards Pi, but it also provided him protection from school. Many of Pi’s classmates made fun of his full name and called him names such as “Pissing Patel”. When Pi transferred to a new school he took the first available opportunity to use his nick name, with “that Greek letter that looked like a shack … *Pi+ found refuge” (Martel, ). This nickname allowed him to find the protection from the bullying he would have got if he had used his actual name. The Greek letter symbolizes the roof the nickname has placed over Pi emotionally. Before the nickname was being used all his former classmates new him as only as…
Suddenly i was alone with the man who killed my mother, i realised then and there i couldn't let him live any further,…
Life of Pi is a story that it can be translated in completely opposing ways. While one reader might find it deeply religious, another may find Pi's story as atheistic. However, there is a common theme that the book urges to all readers, which is to have faith in your beliefs. Through the character Pi, Yann Martel proves how hard yet ultimately rewarding, it can be to have faith.…
Other symbols in Life of Pi would include the ocean, which represented life and death at the same time, providing Pi with food but in exchange ruining his body with everything from sores to storms and the whistle, which slightly represented survival, as Pi needed it to keep Richard Parker at bay. In brief, symbols helped this story by allowing the reader to better understand the themes of the…