Life of Pi by Marte

Life of Pi by Marte

In Life of Pi by Martel, Martel uses the faith of Pi to show that initiation, innocence resolutions and chaos are the core keys to having a true journey of a hero. Life of Pi is set during Indian history tumultuous period which is referred to as the Emergency. In 1975, Indira Gandhi, the prime minister was found charged and found guilty because of her election campaign of 1971 and was forced to resign (Anderson 20). Instead and in reaction to increased protests and strikes that were making it difficult for a government to run its activities, make Indira declare a state of emergency, halting temporarily constitutional rights and she gave herself the power and authority to rule by decree.

The state of Emergency lasted for approximately eighteen months and it came to an end officially in March 1977 when Indira was called upon for another round of elections. The legacy of historical of the Emergency has been taken to be highly controversial: whereas civil liberties in this upcoming democracy were severely restricted political opponents of Indira found themselves abused, tortured, jailed, economy of India underwent a much-needed growth and stabilization “You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a limit” (Anderson 16).

KEY FIGURES

In Life of Pi, Patel’s father, Piscine (Pi) Molitor who is a zookeeper in India, becomes tense and nervous about the political situation in the country. Conjecturing that Gandhi might end up taking over his zoo and be affected by depressing economic conditions in the country, Piscine (Pi) Molitor, therefore, make a decision to sell his zoo animals off and take his family to Canada, therefore setting the center action of the novel into motion(Pigg 590).

Despite only a brief section of Pi’s Life is set in India, eclectic makeup of the country is shown throughout the novel. Pi grew up as a Hindu though as a young boy comes to know both Islam and Christianity and make a decision to practice all the three religions combined. “Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat wearing Muslims”(Pigg 500). In the Note of the Author, an Indian man discusses the story of Pi as “a story that will make you believe in God” (Yeung 249) and Life of Pi continue to grapples with questions about faith, as Pi strictly adhere to the three religions in India, he gives a special perspective on Indian spirituality issues “I couldn’t get Him out of my head. Still can’t. I spent three solid days thinking about Him. The more He bothered me, the less I could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him” (Wright &Laura 330). The diverse culture of India is shown in author’s choice of Pondicherry as the setting of the novel. “Every effort to understand destroys the object studied in favor of another object of a different nature; this second object requires from us a new effort which destroys it in favor of a third, and so on and so forth until we reach the one lasting presence, the point at which the distinction between meaning and the absence of meaning disappears: the same point from which we began” (Kong 98).

India was colonized by British for about two hundred years, and as a result most of India is under the influence of British culture “Colonialism hardly ever exploits the whole of a country. It contents itself with bringing to light the natural resources, which it extracts, and exports to meet the needs of the mother country’s industries, thereby allowing certain sectors of the colony to become relatively rich. But the rest of the colony follows its path of under-development and poverty, or at all events sinks into it more deeply” (Comaroff 310). Nevertheless, the setting, Pondicherry which is a small city in the southern part of India, was at one point the capital of French India, consequently has conserved a French flavor that makes it unique from the rest of India. Maybe reflecting the author’s own nomadic childhood, Pi Patel start his life a cultural setting that is diverse before meeting Mexican, French, Canadian and Japanese characters along his journey.

The Impact and Influence

Post colonialisms is a group of theories which analyses critically the impact of western colonization on the society. These theories concentrate on the way western colonization brought Christian values to a people seen as others. “And the sins of the Eastern father shall be visited upon the Western sons. Often taking their time, stored up in the genes like baldness or testicular carcinoma, but sometimes on the very same day” (Cilano 71).

In the novel, the five sections of The Life of Pi in the Maslow’s Hierarchy; his main focus is water and food, as he needs both of these to continue living. Pi is in physiological stage. He don’t have to consider his morals since according to Maslow’s Hierarchy, any individual cannot pay attention to a higher level before the psychological needs are achieved and at this point he will die if he does not drink and eat. “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher” (Kuus 480). Pie is forced to disobey his religious belief and feed on meat so that he can survive “When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling (Wimmer 320). His religious belief becomes secondary since he want to satisfy his physiological needs first. If the physiological needs are satisfied then he will pay attention to safety from Parker. Pi creates physical obstruction between himself and Parker. Pi is aware that this will not be adequate to ensure his safety. The only option would be tame Parker into believing that Pi is the dominant male. Pi attention to safety is shown by his use of a whistle and not a whip as well as making of a shield. Pi even proceeds to train the tiger in order to jump via hoops. At this moment Pi is now struggling to find love and affection in the Hierarchy since he has fulfilled his safety and physical needs. He became attached to Parker since he spends a lot of time with him in a place that is isolated. Without Parker, Pi would have lost the purpose to live as the tiger keeps him awake. The attachment to Parker can be seen when Pi cry after parker leaves him without saying goodbye. “To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing–I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.” (Jackson 200). In the novel there are several, examples of Pi attaining success. Pi attains this the moment he completes making the raft, tame Parker and catches the turtles. After landing safely he attains the esteem stage in the Hierarchy, as it is the highest point of his success when he survives a painful experience. Before he was on the lifeboat, Pi was self-actualized, as it was his ambition. This is shown when Pi makes a decision to Practice three religions, despite people did not approve it. Pi had ability to do this because other human needs were fully satisfied. He had his self-esteem, affection and love, safety and physiological needs satisfied. Pi demonstrated examples of the levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in the book The Life of Pi. Pi demonstrates examples of human behavior which is predictable when faced with unpredictable circumstances.

Challenges and Criticism

All in all, a life changer to Pi is survival. The clear development from his life in India to his life at the sea is evident in every chapter. The more cruel deaths and animal environment that Pi see, the more he behaves like an animal and not like a human being “Power is something that is out of term” (Alloula 93). This is clearly implied by the author since the name PI can be a short form for Pisces, which implies fish. There is a unique relationship between the nature of animals and the nature of Pi (Yeung 256).

Nevertheless, Pi is yet to change into an animal psychologically since he has faith makes him sane. This faith enables him not to eat faeces or drink the urine which he desires strongly at some points. The struggle for water and food makes Pi become delusional and understanding the fact that he has lost everything is the reason he survived. Pi has to continue believing in God, since it will enable him to overcome the emotional and psychological challenges that survival brings him “The stories surrounding eating durians remind us that literature should incorporate low culture, bringing it closer to lived reality. These legends come not from the pens of the elite but are assembled from the words of the masses, both written and spoken, passed from one person to another—the only way to create a text this deep and compelling (Fussell 199).