Fishing In Life Of Pi

So one is stranded in the middle of the ocean on a lifeboat with a vicious Bengal tiger. Does one jump off the boat, kill the tiger, or try to create peace? One doesn’t have much time. It is a tough question because all of the options are life threatening. Has one decided yet? Act fast! Many people would try to kill the tiger, but one doesn’t have any weapons. Jump off the boat, then one would drown. Piscine Patel evaluated all of these options in the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Pi, short for Piscine, lived in India. He owned and ran a zoo until his family decided to sell the animals and immigrate to Canada on a ship named the Tsimtsum. During a turbulent storm, Pi is tossed overboard onto a lifeboat accompanied by a zebra, hyena, orangutan, …show more content…
Gary Krist, the author of Taming the Tiger, said “ He comes to realize that survival involves knowing when to assert himself and when to hold back, when to take the upper hand and when to yield to a power greater than himself” (Krist). Pi learns a lot about how to cope with the situations he is faced. Survival at sea is to be the most difficult survival situation. Pi narrates that: “The rain grew stronger and the sea rougher as the night progresses” (Martel 152). The weather was a big issue too because he had to come up with ways to stay dry. The only good part about the rain was that he could catch water in the water catcher that was found in the locker. Pi describes the nights: “During these long, cold, dark hours, as the patterning of the invisible rain got to deafening, and the sea hissed and tossed me about” (Martel 152). The nights were long and all he could do was lay there and try to stay warm and dry. Some nights he would wake up because the storm would rock the lifeboat and then he wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep after that. Pi illustrates the life below the lifeboat: “There were sharks every day, mainly makos and blue sharks, but also oceanic whitetips, and once a tiger shark straight from the blackest of nightmares” (Martel). Sharks would swarm the lifeboat wait for something to fall over. The animal life beneath the lifeboat was threatening and dangerous. Many times did Pi just want to jump into the herd of sharks and forget about everything. From moving from the lifeboat to the raft and back again Pi had to be cautious that there was no sharks in case he ever did actually cascade over. The author analyses that: “Life of Pi is a story about fighting against overwhelming odds to stay alive” (Grudzina 11). Pi had to fight for everything when he is trying to survive in