Life Of Pi Literary Analysis Essay

Many people feel that they could never abandon their morals and values. However, these people have not been challenged with extreme circumstances in their life. Yann Martel, in his novel Life of Pi, shows us that even though we believe our morals and values are important, we can abandon them when we are desperate. His story is about a boy who manages to survive after the boy and his family travels on a ship that sinks. The boy loses his family, and eventually ends up stuck at in a lifeboat at sea, with a bengal tiger, and little food. In his book, Martel suggests that when faced with a tough decision, man will choose survival over keeping morals and values. When Pi’s food supply runs low, he decides to change his diet, even though it means abandoning his life’s beliefs. During Pi’s time …show more content…
When Pi reaches the carnivorous island and meets another man, Richard Parker kills the other man, and leaves his body on the boat. Pi says in his story, “I will confess that I caught one of his arms with the gaff and used his flesh as bait. I will further confess that, driven by the extremity of my need and the madness to which it pushed me, I ate some of his flesh. (...) You must understand, my suffering was unremitting and he was already dead”(322). Pi says that he eats some of the man’s flesh. He also says that he does it because of his suffering. In Pi’s second story, he tells about a butcher who does everything he can to survive. In this story, one moment that Pi talks about is, “He tried to be discreet, but she saw him bring his hand to his mouth. She shouted, ‘I saw you! You just ate a piece! (...)’ If she had expected him to be mortified, to spit it out and break down and apologize, she was wrong”(387-388). Similar to Pi’s situation in the first story, the butcher also eats human flesh. Both of these characters do it because they want to