Theme

The Mental Boat

Author's Note- This is a theme piece on the book Life of Pi.  I am going for body paragraphs on this.  The theme is mental survival.

A God loving boy is on the brink of death.  Can he save himself or will he get mauled by a fearsome Bengal tiger?  Pi must learn trust for his Gods' and he needs to mentally survive or he could possibly die.

When Pi is in trouble he always turns to his gods of many different religions.  He was always looking to learn religions so he can become closer to many gods.  Even in his supplies on the boat  he mentions god.  This tells me that he could believe he would mentally and physically survive as long as he becomes close to God.

There were four animals on the boat with Pi and Richard Parker was one of them.  Richard Parker was a Bengal tiger who ended up eating all of the animals but Pi.  If Pi must survive he must earn trust in Richard Parker and his God.  If Pi does not trust everything  is given and does not use them well, he may not be alive for very long.  He could have given up if he had the no trust

If the fearsome tiger would have mauled Pi, it would prove that there is no God.  According to the story Mahatma Gandhi said, "All religions are true."  If all religions are true then that means that we should believe in every religion, so why don't we.  I think that Pi found out that if you just believe in someone you can survive anything.

Life of Pi is much like the book, Hatchet, with a boy that has found himself in the wild with limited supplies and needed to trust the search party just like Pi needed to trust God.  In the Hatchet the boy in the book was  very fit and probably was ready for anything since he lived in Canada.  However Pi was a wealthier family living in a nation with poverty and Pi was not ready for anything terrible to happen.  Although Brian from Hatchet was prepared physically I don't think either of them were prepared mentally and both of them defiantly learned to mentally survive and not give up.

The first part of Life of Pi is Pi Patel's philosaphy.  The book all channels in from the begining to the end to connect all that Pi has done.  This book's theme is mental survival and Pi's philosaphy helped him get through a long boat trip with a man named Richard Parker.