What I Think So Far

I have made immense progress in my reading of Life of Pi and reached page 119. Up to this point, the story has covered mainly Pi's struggle with picking a religion and the sinking of the ship while him and his family were traveling across the Pacific from India. Prior to learning of the wreck, Pi went into tremendous details about being Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. He felt that he should not have to decide between the three and rather they were all valid ways to love God. When arguing with his parents he claimed, "If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?" referring to all religions merging into one nation and all passports being acceptable forms of entry. (Martel 74) I thought although this section was dragged out, it was interesting to hear how he believes these religions are connected through a central idea of God/ idols and their final destination of eternal life. I believe his faith will shape his experiences in life and specifically, will be how he survives the shipwreck. My favorite part however, was the shipwreck scene. The suspense was built up with all the background information and then the event suddenly came up like the unexpectedness of a shipwreck. Pi talked of being woken by a strange noise, exploring the ship and realizing it was sinking, being thrown off the ship into a life boat to be eaten by a hyena, allowing Richard Parker the tiger to climb into his boat, and ending with four dangerous animals with him on his lifeboat. I really enjoyed reading his thoughts and sporadic  decisions when thrown into this dangerous, new situation. I am looking forward to continuing in my reading.
Image result for animals pi was stuck on boat with

This image portrays the various animals initially on the boat with Pi. There was an orangutan (Orange Juice), zebra, hyena, and tiger (Richard Parker), but we later learn only the tiger and Pi survive.


I have attached a link to an article about an actual shipwreck survivor's role in creating the ship wreck scenes of the Life of Pi movie. I thought this was interesting to compare the initial moments after Pi's ship sank to the survivor's experience:

https://www.npr.org/2013/02/24/172632549/real-life-shipwreck-survivor-helped-life-of-pi-get-lost-at-sea 

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