Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs Essay

Life of Pi is a world renowned novel that follows the adventures of shipwreck survivor Pi Patel. The author, Yann Martel, discovered the incredible story upon meeting a man named Francis Adirubasamy while visiting India. Throughout the novel, Pi experiences several situations that ultimately cause him to let go of certain needs in order to focus on others. These experiences correlate with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a series of stages shaped in a pyramid showcasing the needs in a human’s life. The five levels of the pyramid include; Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Love/Belonging, Esteem, & Self-Actualization. In his studies, Maslow expresses how the most basic and fundamental needs are at the bottom of the pyramid and must be met before moving onto higher level needs. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, readers can witness the main character, Pi, go through stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, in accordance to his situation. In the beginning of the novel, Pi leads a very privileged life, in which he met all fundamental levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; he had food/water, a safe home, loving family, and an interest in religion and zoology that provided him with a sense of value/esteem. Here, readers can witness Pi seeking self-actualization,
in which he began to pursue his interest in religions whilst he decides to practice three different religions at once; Hindu, Christianity, and Islam. In Part Two of the novel, after the shipwreck, Pi’s high standing in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs completely changes. The lone survivor at sea lets go of his previous pursuit for self-actualization, and focuses only on his physical and safety needs in order to survive – “I began to wait. My thoughts swung wildly. I was either fixed on practical details of immediate survival or transfixed by pain, weeping silently, my mouth open and my hands at my head” (Martel, 2001). Here, Pi expresses his need to only focus on his survival, as opposed to weeping about the loss of his family.
During Pi’s time on the boat, it is the lack of Physiological and Safety stages met that require him to only focus on these stages, causing Pi to let go of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs other advanced, secondary stages; these include Love/Belonging, Esteem, & Self-Actualization. Furthermore, Pi even began to dismiss his religious principles in order to survive – “I was now a killer … I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood in my hands" (Martel, 2001). It is clear that Pi is aware of the type of person he has to become in order to stay alive, which results in Pi to disregard his beliefs and lose any progress to self-actualization.
In the novel, Life of Pi, the main character expresses needs for all stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs at one point or another.
It is, however, important to realize that it was Pi’s current situation that dictated which needs were required more focus than others. Pi understood what was required of him in order to successfully focus on certain needs versus others in accordance to his situation. With this in mind, every person is capable of completing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and reach self-actualization. Nonetheless, it is crucial for one to first satisfy the basic Physiological and Safety needs, as these provide the foundation for one to have the motivation in order to strive for the end goal of
self-actualization.