Life of Pi: Final Essay

          In Life of Pi, the main character Piscine Patel’s life takes an unexpected turn for the worse: Pi’s pious, stable life as a zoo keeper’s son in India abruptly ends when his family decides to migrate to Canada and escape escalating political instability in India. Pi, his family, and a few of their animals board a ship headed to their new life, but tragedy strikes when the ship sinks. Pi is faced with an unimaginably difficult situation; his religious beliefs are put to the test when he is faced with life or death situations, and, to a reader, Pi’s sanity appears to be dwindling and overtaken by madness. However, just as Emily Dickinson stated, sometimes madness is simply the barest, most instinctive form of human sanity.

          Pi ends up on a life boat with a few of the animals, but soon all of the animals except the tiger, named Richard Parker, die. Pi knows he must find bait to fish with to get food for Richard Parker and himself; the problem is that Pi’s devout religious beliefs, especially his Hindu faith, have discouraged him from killing or eating animals for his entire life. To survive, he must do both. He starts by killing the flying fish that surround the life boat for bait, and states that, “A lifetime of peaceful vegetarianism stood between (him) and the willful beheading of a fish”(page 175), to convey his unease regarding the situation at hand. However, Pi “knew it had to be done”.

          Pi “wept” after killing his first fish, but then he states that “after that it was easier”. This marks his transition into what some may call madness. Pi thanks a Hindu God for giving him a fish to kill, which is completely contradictory to his prior beliefs. He states that killing the Dorado “was no problem”, and he even beat the fish to death (page 177). However, Pi does not ignore this evolved mindset of his. He states in a side note that “a person can get used to anything”. Pi’s quick transition from an earnest, faithful vegetarian to a brutal, apathetic animal killer is certainly one that appears to be caused by pure madness, but in actuality, it is caused by his sheer will to survive. Pi has to become “mad” to some extent because it is the only way he can force himself to kill the animals he loves and save himself.

          After getting over his initial, religion-fueled uncertainty, Pi only becomes more savage and continues to digress from his previous culture. He dons himself in fish scales and kills many sea turtles and other aquatic animals not only for the meat but also for the game, and he “descended to a level of savagery he had never thought possible” (page 197). While this shows that Pi does become increasingly less mentally stable, or mad, killing for sport is one of the very few things Pi can do to stay busy. Pi spent hundreds of days at sea, and possessing a form of madness is inevitable for anyone denied human contact for that long. He kills so he will have a task instead of spending thousands of empty hours staring at the sea.

The term madness certainly has a definition that varies by the situation. Pi’s madness is not madness in the traditional sense: Pi acknowledges his absurd, mad behavior and that his actions do indeed deviate from his traditional beliefs, but he also realizes that his response is the only way he can exit the ocean alive and retain any ounce of sanity. The true meaning of madness is a major theme in Life of Pi because it marks the transition from a pure, innocent school boy to a teenager looking death in the eye, begging the readers to relate to Pi’s situation and asking them just how far they are willing to sway from their steadfast beliefs when faced with a challenging situation.

         

Current Event

A Mexican drug cartel known as the Zetas has dumped forty-nine bodies in a town close to the Mexican-American border. This barbarity is not unique; many other powerful gangs have also participated in these mass killings, and the number of killings is growing tremendously leading up to the Mexican presidential elections.

I know this sounds strange, but one of my biggest fears is Mexican drug cartels. While, needless to say, there are few violent drug cartels in South Mississippi, last summer I spent a ton of my free time learning about them. My family and I spent a few weeks in in San Diego, and I was determined to go to Tijuana. We were so close, and I didn't understand why, if we had our passports, they refused to take me. We eventually compromised, and they said that we would go to the border but no further. When we got to the boarder, I was appalled. I was extremely ignorant as to how big of a deal the whole drug trafficking issue had become. There were hundreds of Mexican and American border guards everywhere we looked, and there were around ten helicopters circling right over our heads.
After that experience, I learned all about the sophisticated cartels. The most powerful had their own 747 planes, submarines, and private cruise ships to transport their products. I also learned that these transportation methods frequented the United States. I think what scares me most about these most recent killings is their proximity to our country. Boarder areas are known for their violence, and these acts are happening increasingly closer to our home. Some of these people were probably even killed in the United States. This also makes me think about the innocent people in these drug infested cities. If these killings scare me thousands of miles away, I can't imagine what the local people are feeling. Many are too poor to escape, and, with the corruption of the government and police force in favor of the drug cartels, they have no protection.

Miroff, Nick. "‘Total barbarity’ as Mexican cartel dumps 49 torsos along highway." The Washington Post, 13 May 2012. Web. 13 May 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 4

I enjoyed this book far more after I read the last twenty or so pages. Before, I had a hard time making sense of Pi and his relationship with Richard Parker and the other animals, but now I am glad that I read the "better story" instead of the true story. In actuality, Pi had to struggle with far more than just becoming a carnivore. He had to witness the shocking death of the other survivors, including his beloved mother, in addition to becoming a meat eater. I was most certainly not expecting this plot twist: I was under the impression that Pi and Richard Parker would somehow be rescued, and then Pi would open a zoo and live happily ever after. At first when Richard Parker ran away, I was mainly just mad at the tiger, but now I realize that his departure symbolized the arrival of reality: Pi was no longer able to mask the true story with stories of animals. What amazes me, though, is that Pi retains the ability to distinguish the truth from his "better story". I would think that he would subconsciously forget what really happened and just stick with his story about the animals. Pi's religious beliefs also make more sense now. He was on the raft all alone, and his devout faith and his "better story" were all he had to hold on to what sanity he could keep.

Current Event

Facebook has added a new, unexpected option amidst its sea of  check-ins and relationship statuses. Now, thanks to the social networking web site, Facebookers can become organ donors with only a few clicks of their mice. Found under the "life event" category,  the Organ Donor status should have many positive effects. By becoming an organ donor, people not only help save the lives of others with their organs but also spread the word about the benefits of organ donation. This new program is a great way to increase organ donor numbers, and, therefore, decrease the number of people on the organ donation list. I wish everyone would understand that he or she has no use for his or her organs after death and that by donating unused organs, many people can live healthy lives in return.

"Facebook Gives Boost to Organ Donation Registry." Tiffany McCall. WKRG.com News, 3 May 2012.Web. 6 May 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 3

In this chapter, Pi's religious beliefs are tested. As a devout Hindu, Christian, and Muslim, Pi has certain practices that he has become accustomed to, especially in his Hindu faith because, as a Hindu, eating meat is forbidden. Pi tries to fish to no avail, showing that he is open to the idea of feasting on meat, but his real transformation happens a little after his failed fishing attempts. After seeing Richard Parker dining on flying fish, Pi takes the difficult plunge and kills a fish for himself. This shows that humans, when faced with difficult, possibly religiously affiliated decisions will most likely choose survival over beliefs. Pi realizes that he must eat to live but that eating meat means that he isviolating his religious beliefs. While this isn't savagery, this concept is similar to that of Lord of the Fly's when the boys resort to violence to survive. The boys weren't initially savage people, but their predicament called for savage measures to insure their survival. Pi soon becomes content with killing the fish because he understands that when it comes to religions, flexibility is okay (as seen in his simultaneous practice of three).

In this section, it also is becoming evident that Pi is experiencing some of the "zoo morphism" as well. He seems to be becoming more and more like Richard Parker in his eating habits, just like how Richard Parker is not acting as a tiger should. They both changed their ways to accommodate one another, and weather it was subconscious or not, the morphism allows them to relate to one another and is key in their survival. Pi needs Richard Parker as a companion, and Richard Parker needs Pi for food.

Current Event

 A bill has been passed in the Senate to help ease the struggle of the United States Postal Service. The bill plans to limit the closing or consolidation of post offices around the world and increase retirement benefits to tempt those eligible. However, as John McCain said, "This of course kicks the can down the road." While this bill protects the Postal Service in the short run, a long-term solution will need to be implemented.

I have mixed feelings about this bill. The Postal Service obviously is becoming obsolete with e-mail's ever-increasing domination. I had to go to the post office for the first time in six years last week. It was there that I realized I am far more fluent in HTML than I am in USPS. I was completely ignorant, and it was embarrassing: I had no clue which labels to use or which stamps to buy. However, I am not alone. In present day, my ignorance is shared by millions. I have only had one reason to go to the post office in the past several years. The USPS's numbers have been dropping for the last decade, and no number of senate bills can stop this decrease. I don't want the USPS to shut down because I don't want its thousands of employees to be out of work (and also because it has very good flat rate shipping prices), but if it were to shut down, I think I would be more accepting than angry.


"Senate Bill Aims to Save USPS." Hope Yen. The Associated Press, 25 April 2012. Web. 26 April 2012.

Life of Pi: Blog 2

I have a hard time reading fiction books, and truthfully, Life of Pi certainly doesn't make it any easier. I like the parts about religion and the acceptance of all, but the rest is very hard for me to follow. There is a zoo, a teenage boy, sloths, boats, land animals battling to their deaths in the middle of the ocean, and a man-eating tiger that isn't so man-eating. I understand how they all connect, but this story line is so far from reality that I think the author was intending for readers to see it just as a hypothetical situation and not a real story at all. I know fiction can be and is as far from reality as possible sometimes, this story just seems to have so many weird aspects.
After his ship sinks, Pi allows a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker onto his lifeboat. I don't understand the logic behind Pi's allowing a deadly creature to possibly compromise his chance of survival, but for whatever reason, the tiger is not an issue. Maybe this has something to do with the "zoo morphism" mentioned in our previous section: the tiger and Pi are both in the same situation so the tiger is most likely sympathizing with Pi and sees Pi as one of his own. After the orangutang and the zebra are killed by the hyena, it is clear that Richard Parker will be an instrumental part in this book.