Archetypes In Life Of Pi

Throughout Pi’s life he meets many people of different archetypes. For instance, Pi appears himself to be somewhat of an outcast. His brother teases him about his name and his many religions throughout the book by calling him names such as that one word that starts with p and ends in g. It is also reinforced by the fact that he is stranded on the lifeboat for around half the book. Let's take a look at some other character’s archetypes now. Most of the more main characters can be associated with an archetype. Ravi could be seen as the bully, Mr. Kumar (the baker) could be seen as the sage as suggested on page 77, “He was a Sufi, a muslim mystic. He sought fana, union with God, and his relationship with God was personal and loving.”, as well as the catholic priest and the hindu monk and the other Mr. Kumar. They all play a part in Pi’s life and affect it on a large scale. There are some archetypes about the things he does in his life. They involve things like a Quest and such. …show more content…
It could be seen as either The Fall or Catalog of Difficult Tasks. The Fall represents an event that marks as a loss of innocence or some other loss of something. It can be seen that Pi has lost his innocence on his journey, he gains animalistic qualities and even results in cannibalism in both versions of the story. He even says “It became an unmistakable indication to me of how low I had sunk the day I noticed,with a pinching of my heart, that I ate like an animal, that this, noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate.”