Man Booker Prize

A Spiritual Survival Guide It is nearly impossible to imagine the capacity at which Pi Patel, a young Indian boy, relies and survives because of his undying faith. The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel is a story about this very phenomenon. As this story comes into fruition, this boy is introduced as one who has double majored in zoology and religion after surviving miraculously at sea for 227 days. The very nature of this tale incorporates these ideologies in such a way that elicits strong feelings of…

Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.” (21). This quote can have many different meanings. Pi has heard many people say negative things about zoos, mostly that they take away noble, wild animals of their freedom and trap them in boring, domesticated lives, but he disagrees. He believes that wild animals in their natural surroundings come to deal with fear, fighting, lack of food, and parasites on a regular basis. Animals in the wild are not free at…

Yann Martel once said, “Survival is a state of mind”. In The Life of Pi, Yann Martel uses the theme of survival. Mans duality is demonstrated through facing his fears, psychological survival, and constructed reality. At the beginning of the novel, Pi’s father instills a lesson is to be learned around big animals such as Bengal tigers. Pi’s father makes Pi and his older brother watch as a goat is thrown into the cage of the tiger as a meal. Growing up at the Pondicherry zoo, Piscine had a love…

Over time society has come to recognize certain objects, like the Red Cross, flashing lights, and hospital signs, as being the universal symbols of aid. However, many of these symbols do not necessarily need to be tangible objects in order to represent something greater, but can be a concept even as subtle as a colour that, when repeatedly shown in certain contexts, comes to symbolize the same as an ambulance responding to an emergent call. Some of the strongest symbols in literature include…

Introduction Life of Pi is situated against the tumultuous time of Indian history known as the Emergency. Life of Pi is suffused by a pervasive liminality. The teenaged Pi is in movement between mainlands, in the middle of religions, and in the middle of youth and adulthood, which implies that the novel is likewise a bildungsroman. The story is a kinder, more hopeful decision contrasted with the more "sensible" story. Pi is content with his life living in the zoo with his crew. He grows up…

The two crucial stories told by Piscine Molitor Patel, the main character of the novel Life Of Pi written by Yann Martel, contain completely different characters as well as different versions of events that took place while Pi was lost at sea. The differences of these two stories unite to form a commentary on religion, specifically religious tales, and the power of storytelling. In addition to their differences unveiling observations related to people’s beliefs, the similarities between the two…

Chapter two of Into the Jungle introduces Alfred Wallace in the Rio dos Uaupes in the Amazon, where he had been staying for about four years discovering and collecting new animals, plants, and specimen. However, on his journey back to England in 1852, a tragic fire on the ship led him to lose almost all of his discoveries. Even though he was able to salvage some of his findings and had even been able to sell some of his specimens because of his agent Samuel Stevens, he still had an urge to go…

Imagine being lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a tiger that’s starving of hunger and having to figure out a way not to get eaten by it. Or having to train a really dangerous tiger knowing that it might attack because it’s hungry. Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, describes one full story of a kid who’s lost in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a tiger, and a kid whose family passed away when they were on a boat on their way to Canada for better job opportunities. The story with…

Wondrous but Fearful Tyger William Blake’s “The Tyger” in Songs of Experience, written in 1794, describes the Tyger as “fearful” while appreciating its beauty. During this time, Blake was one of the first people to see a tiger; this inspired him to write “The Tyger” and paint the creature as a majestic but fierce being. Although the origins of the Tyger are questioned, the creator is referred to as “he” implying a male divine creator. While examining who or what created the Tyger, in addition…

Stranded, lost between your soul and the earth, stuck with two monsters, a four hundred- fifty pound Bengal Tiger and your mind. Pi Patel was an innocent sixteen year old indian boy, caught in a spiral of unfortunate events. Pi was first devastated when his parents said the family was selling the zoo and moving to Canada. Then, the ship (Tsimtsum) sunk in the Mariana’s Trench don’t think it sank here. He luckily survived, even after being trapped with Richard Parker (the Bengal Tiger) for two…