Theme: The relationship between Pi Patel and Richard Parker

In the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, one of the most important themes is the relationship between the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker and Pi Patel. The relationship of these two changes drastically overtime because of their experience together stranded on a lifeboat after the Tsimtsum sinks. The relationship starts off with Pi’s expected fear towards this 450 pound tiger and later progresses toward a love for a creature that did him no harm. However, at the end of the novel, the second version of the story that Pi tells, involves humans. In this story, Pi’s actions are parallel with Richard Parker’s which makes the reader think that maybe he is Richard Parker, and a tiger named Richard Parker does not actually exist.

When he first sees Richard Parker overboard, his initial reaction was to save the creature. He does not know where he is or what is going on and so the familiar face reassures him. He uses all his might and energy to try to help and encourage the tiger onto the lifeboat. “What are you doing Richard Parker? Don’t you love life? Keep swimming then! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! Kick with your legs. Kick! Kick! Kick! (98).” In this part, if he really is Richard Parker, it is as if he is encouraging himself to keep fighting to survive. However, when he realizes that he is encouraging a Bengal tiger to come and join him on a tiny boat, he panics and tries to reverse this action. “In a few seconds you’ll be aboard and we’ll be together. Wait a second. Together? We’ll be together? Have I gone mad (99)?” He then tries to drown the tiger to no avail. He realizes that by letting Richard Parker on would be taking on the animal-like instincts that the tiger would have. Being animal-like would go against his morals, so he tries to push the characteristics away.

Pi slowly realizes that he would need the tiger, the animal-like characteristics, in order to survive. “It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, and I dare say even wholeness (162).” So as time goes on, Pi is still a little fearful of his tiger-like characteristics, but he learns to live with them because they are crucial to his survival. It was during a moment that Pi recognizes that he would not survive without Richard Parker that he exclaims, “‘I love you!’ The words burst out pure and unfettered, infinite. The feeling flooded my chest. ‘Truly I do. I love you, Richard Parker. If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t think I would make it. No, I wouldn’t I would die of hopelessness. Don’t give up, Richard Parker, don’t give up. I’ll get you to land, I promise, I promise (236)!” He is stating the fact that without the characteristics of Richard Parker he would not be able to make it. And once again, he is encouraging that part himself to keep going, so he can survive.

At the end of the story, when talking to the men from the Japanese ministry, he changed his story when they said that the first one was not believable. When telling this version, his actions were parallel with the tiger’s actions. In essence the reader is left to believe that maybe Richard Parker really does not exist but that he is created in order to cover up the barbaric way in which he acts.

Web source

Greer, W. R. “Life of Pi is a masterful story.” Reviewofbooks.com. 2002. 11 March 2007 <http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/life_of_pi/review/>.

This book review gives the reader the general story of the novel. It summarizes what happens in Pi Patel’s life and his religious findings. “As he enters his teen years, Pi goes in search of God. His parents weren’t very pious people, but growing up in India, Pi was initially a Hindu. When he first encounters Christianity, he finds Jesus lacking in comparison to the Hindu gods, who are grand in stature and history. He comes to embrace Christianity’s message of love. Then he discovers Islam, ‘a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion.’ Pi becomes a member of all three religions, content in his newfound sense of God.” This quote describes the important events that occur throughout Part One: Toronto and Pondicherry of the novel. It illustrates Pi’s interesting search for God(s), and how he finds God through all the religions. The book review goes on to talk about the later sections and his experiences on a lifeboat with the zoo animals. It talks about how Pi handled living with a Bengal tiger and survived after all the animals die. “Pi lives in constant terror of Richard Parker, but manages to keep him supplied with fish, turtles, and fresh water so that he doesn’t turn on him.” However, since it is a book review, it does not go in depth about any of the themes that are involved in the book.

Database source

Morra, Linda M.: Life of Pi. Canadian Literature/Littérature canadienne: a quarterly of criticism and review (Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver) [Summer 2003] , p.163.

In this source, the author does a criticism of the novel Life of Pi. She starts off with details about the main events of the story. She then compares and contrasts it with the story of Daniel Defoe’s, Robinson Crusoe. She points out the parallels in the two novels and how both the main characters in the novels manage to survive through obstacles put in their way. “Like Crusoe, he [Pi Patel] survives the cruelties of starvation, isolation, loneliness (if one disqualifies the presence of Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger), and the elements, as he also becomes preoccupied with making a raft and the tools and means upon which his survival depends.”

She goes deep within the plots of both novels and examines how they are similar and different. “Martel’s novel, is no simple variant of the Crusoe adventure story. In fact, Life of Pi seems designed to impugn the bourgeois Puritan ideology that underlies Robinson Crusoe. An examination of the protagonists and their respective circumstances demonstrates this significant difference.” She points out the differences in the situations of Crusoe and Pi. While Crusoe was son of a wealthy family who had chose to go a voyage, Pi was the son of a poor Indian family who had no choice but to go on the voyage. In the end for her criticism, the author claims that the author’s note at the beginning “seems to suggest a level of profundity and sophistication that the novel does not quite attain.”

Print Source

Walsh, Bryan. “Castaway With Karma.” Time 22 Aug 2002.

Time magazine’s article “Castaway with Karma,” discusses the novel and its unique approach to a survival story. “There are certain unbreakable laws to the survival story. Take an unlikely character, pluck him out of the anesthetized womb of daily life and toss him into a harsh environment. Test his physical endurance through hardship and privation his will to live through isolation. And if at all possible, throw in a full-grown royal Bengal tiger. Yann Martel’s inspired novel Life of Pi is at its core a record of survival, and quite a record it is.” There is also a summary of the major events that occur throughout the novel. He mentions Pi Patel’s search for religion and his finding it through three religions because he just wants “to love God.” He then talks about the Patel family’s immigration to Canada and the shipwreck that causes the “survival story.” The author points out the “half twist of an ending” that “reinforce his [Yann Martel’s] religious themes and inject a bracing does of uncertainty.” This article gives a very good overview of the book and its contents; however, it does not go in depth with the themes and does not bring up any of the symbols that the story contains.