What might the island, and/or its inhabitants, symbolize? Explain.
20 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I think the island symbolizes hope, and the fact that no matter what anyone gets themselves into, they will always find hope and somehow get out of it if they try. Pi tried very hard throughout the whole book to train Richard Parker, to find food for himself, to guide the boat, and he found hope, an island with algae, meerkats, and water. This will help him to survive for the rest of his journey.
This island symbolizes how the day goes by while he is on the lifeboat. During the day on the island it is beautiful and fulfillnig, but at night it turns dangerous because of the acid. I think that this could relate to the life on the boat because it became unpredictable at night and the animals could attack unsuspected while he was asleep.
I feel that the island is almost like some type of a temporary savior for Pi. Towards the end of part two, it is obvious that Pi is starting to fade away. He cannot find a good amount of food, his seeing is going bad, and he is becoming too week and tired to do anything. When he found the island however, it gave him another chance. While there, he was replentished and was able to eat healthy and sleep better than ever. "I fell into the deepest, most refreshing sleep I had had since the night before the Tsimtsum sank" (Martel 262). If Pi had not found this island where he got some rest and something good to eat, as well as more hope, he may not have made it back to land.
The island and its inhabitants represent life in general. There are things in life that a person doesn't understand, and because of this lack of understanding it is so amazing. There are people that have everything handed to them, like the meerkats, and they cannot truly experience life because of this. Like life, when a person is self-absorbed they are oblivious to the things around them and they may get themselves in danger. It represents the struggles of most people in the world.
I think that the island represents Pi and what his life is becoming on this tretous journey he is facing. Pi is becoming extremely weak and not wanting to do anything. He is having trouble finding food and his starting to fear Richard Parker in such a way that is making him go insane. His sight is starting to fade and Pi in general is not doing to well. I also believe that this island was a sign for Pi in that his journey would be over soon and he will be saved!
I have a mixed opinion about the island. I believe that it is almost like a trip to Mecca for Pi where he is reborn into a stronger, healthier man. When he gets there all his hope his lost. He sight has returned, but that does not really matter because all he can see is blue. Once he finds the island he finds many things. He eats the algae, which have a sugary taste, the sweetest he has ever had. After filling up on algae for a few days he decides that he wants to try and walk to the tree. On the first day he falls and must crawl there. After a few days of doing this, "I was able to walk. Falling half a dozen times, I managed to reach the tree," (Martel 262). The new strength he finds on the island allows him to survive his journey all the way to Mexico. --Spiderman
The island symbolizes life and all of its unpredictability. With all due respect, Pi should have died on the ocean. 227 days stuck surrounded by salt water, one way or another he should have died. He should have drowned, he should have been eaten, he should have been electrocuted, he should have die so many ways that it was completely by dumb luck that he survived. But, such is life.
Life, speaking generally about living organisms, is a very funny thing. We fear awesome and great predators like the wolf or lion, harness the power of horses or elephants for work or war, and find beauty in creatures such as deer or tigers and then, with a shot of scotch in our hands, we try to figure out what cruel joke nature was thinking up when it created the platypus. Life, organic life, is the platypus. It is one big, cruel, random joke and every organism is a part of the punch line. Something as stupid looking as the platypus is able to survive in the wild is proof that, in life, anything can happen.
That is the island, it is yet another piece of proof that anything can happen. Given the right conditions, algae CAN evolve to the point they form an acidic island. Under the right circumstances, meerkats CAN live on a weird algae island. Anything can happen in life, so we need to get use to it.
As stated in my answer to the 2nd question, the island and its inhabitants are a metaphor. The island is Pi giving up; rather to live on this island forever instead of civilization. The meerkats seem to me as mere meerkats or just some sort of food. The treetops are an escape, as they are the only way to live on the island at night. Lastly, the fruit with teeth is probably like Eden's forbidden fruit and luckily for Pi he leaves immediatley as opposed to getting sucked in to this seemingly harmless island.
What might the island, and/or its inhabitants, symbolize? Explain. The island in Life of Pi symbolizes hope to the people. The reason being is because one can get himself into anything in life, but they should never give up like Pi has not. At one point in the story he had, but he got himself up again and continued his journey. This shows that one can learn many things during their hard times, but it all pays off at the end and the same had happened to Pi. He had done many things to keep himself and Richard Parker alive and by doing so he has learned many things from it.
I strongly believe that the island symbolizes an aspect of life’s struggles. At first to Pi, the island is a dream and he is overwhelmed with its existence. Yet after he stays on the island, he begins to realize that the island is not safe at all and its appearance deceived him. The island became a test for Pi to continue enduring his journey at sea. This false hope of an inhabitable island helps Pi to strengthen his will to stay alive. He has lasted this long so far and he cannot give up now. Pi states, “I grew weary of my situation, as pointless as the weather. But life would not leave me. The rest of this story is nothing but grief, ache and endurance” (Martel 283). The island was a large obstacle Pi had to overcome in his journey and Pi proved he has the strength to find human civilization no matter how long he had to suffer.
I believe the island represents how man feels in his environment. At first, like Pi, he sees it as welcoming, thinks he completely understands it, and it can be tamed. Soon, man finds out the world is far more dangerous than he can comprehend, and thus he must flee back to familiar settings, since he is not able to cope with change. Pi could have stayed on the island, but he could not fathom its power. Instead of facing his fears, he merely tries to avoid them.
The island symbolizes luck. Pi was the only human to survive the sinking of the ship. He needs food and water while on the boat and he ends up finding the locker which is full of survival supplies. He is able to survive a terrible storm stuck in the lifeboat with Richard Parker. This island symbolizes just another piece of luck for Pi. Even though the island turns out to be dangerous at night, it still helped revive Pi so he could go on living. The inhabitants of the island symbolize the ability for living things to survive in strange, unfamiliar conditions. The meerkats are natives of a desert climate but are able to live on this island. Pi and Richard Parker are able to survive for more than 200 days on a lifeboat with limited supplies.
The island symbolizes hope and life in general. After continuous chapters of despair and Pi giving up, this island is a spark of life for him; it is something to give hima reason to keep his head up and still believe that he will get out of this situation.
I think the island symbolizes progress. Why would there need to be an island between his drifting and reaching Mexico; why not just reach Mexico. I believe the island showed Pi that his training of Ricard Parker was progressive. Even on land the tiger still returned at night to sleep and remained at bay. At this point it wasn't so much about relying on one another for surival so much as for friendship and respect. This is why later in the book Pi is bothered by how the tiger leaves his sight without a decent farwell "look". -TRIX
I think that the island symbolizes the ocean, in that although at night it can get dangerous, during the day, it is pretty harmless, except the occasional storm, and all the meerkats could represent the fish that RP regularly got from the ocean. -misbehavin
Religion. I am almost positive the algae island is directly linked to religion. It is a symbol of all religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Muslim. Just as the island floats through the ever-changing and flowing ocean does religion float around the changing of life. As for the meerkats, they represent those who follow the religions. People who live by the rules, follow the practices and have happy lives. While the island provides comfort and heals him, it also has a dark side. When Pi realizes that the island is carnivorous he decides to leave. This parallels with followers who realize many religions are not perfect and do have dark sides. Once a person realizes this they often decide to leave the comfort that the religion brings them and find God on their own path. The tree of fruit only confirms my theory of religion for it almost directly links to the garden of Eden and Christianity.
I think the island represents Pi's hope for finding land. He desperately wants to get out of his situation and find land, such as an island. I think the meercats represent the people that he wishes he would encounter, any humans at all. I think the seemingly impossible island also represents the things in life that seem impossible to us. People often have trouble believing in things that they do not fully understand, such as God, who is also a representation of hope. -Forest Gump
Personally, I think that the island represents a new beginning. While on the island Pi starts to feel rejuvenated; he feels as if he has found his life and returned to living."I spent the following days eating and drinking and bathing and observing the merrkats and walking and running and resting and growing stronger. My running became smooth and unselfconscious, a source of euphoria. My skin healed. My pains and aches left me. Put simply, I returned to life (Martel,269)." Furthermore, the island represents hope and salvation. Although it was merely impossible for an island such as "Gandhian" to exist, Pi still was saved by an empirically impossible, floating, slab of land.
I couldn't agree with Boo Jones more. I believe that island represented the unknown for Pi, as well as his fears of his situation. Upon arriving at the island, he finds that his situation has been completely turned around, much like a zoo animal suddenly being released into the wild, and he chose to leave his new surroundings rather than adapt to it.
20 comments:
I think the island symbolizes hope, and the fact that no matter what anyone gets themselves into, they will always find hope and somehow get out of it if they try. Pi tried very hard throughout the whole book to train Richard Parker, to find food for himself, to guide the boat, and he found hope, an island with algae, meerkats, and water. This will help him to survive for the rest of his journey.
- Cap'n Crunch
This island symbolizes how the day goes by while he is on the lifeboat. During the day on the island it is beautiful and fulfillnig, but at night it turns dangerous because of the acid. I think that this could relate to the life on the boat because it became unpredictable at night and the animals could attack unsuspected while he was asleep.
I feel that the island is almost like some type of a temporary savior for Pi. Towards the end of part two, it is obvious that Pi is starting to fade away. He cannot find a good amount of food, his seeing is going bad, and he is becoming too week and tired to do anything. When he found the island however, it gave him another chance. While there, he was replentished and was able to eat healthy and sleep better than ever. "I fell into the deepest, most refreshing sleep I had had since the night before the Tsimtsum sank" (Martel 262). If Pi had not found this island where he got some rest and something good to eat, as well as more hope, he may not have made it back to land.
The island and its inhabitants represent life in general. There are things in life that a person doesn't understand, and because of this lack of understanding it is so amazing. There are people that have everything handed to them, like the meerkats, and they cannot truly experience life because of this. Like life, when a person is self-absorbed they are oblivious to the things around them and they may get themselves in danger. It represents the struggles of most people in the world.
I think that the island represents Pi and what his life is becoming on this tretous journey he is facing. Pi is becoming extremely weak and not wanting to do anything. He is having trouble finding food and his starting to fear Richard Parker in such a way that is making him go insane. His sight is starting to fade and Pi in general is not doing to well. I also believe that this island was a sign for Pi in that his journey would be over soon and he will be saved!
-cheerio
I have a mixed opinion about the island. I believe that it is almost like a trip to Mecca for Pi where he is reborn into a stronger, healthier man. When he gets there all his hope his lost. He sight has returned, but that does not really matter because all he can see is blue. Once he finds the island he finds many things. He eats the algae, which have a sugary taste, the sweetest he has ever had. After filling up on algae for a few days he decides that he wants to try and walk to the tree. On the first day he falls and must crawl there. After a few days of doing this, "I was able to walk. Falling half a dozen times, I managed to reach the tree," (Martel 262). The new strength he finds on the island allows him to survive his journey all the way to Mexico.
--Spiderman
The island symbolizes life and all of its unpredictability. With all due respect, Pi should have died on the ocean. 227 days stuck surrounded by salt water, one way or another he should have died. He should have drowned, he should have been eaten, he should have been electrocuted, he should have die so many ways that it was completely by dumb luck that he survived. But, such is life.
Life, speaking generally about living organisms, is a very funny thing. We fear awesome and great predators like the wolf or lion, harness the power of horses or elephants for work or war, and find beauty in creatures such as deer or tigers and then, with a shot of scotch in our hands, we try to figure out what cruel joke nature was thinking up when it created the platypus. Life, organic life, is the platypus. It is one big, cruel, random joke and every organism is a part of the punch line. Something as stupid looking as the platypus is able to survive in the wild is proof that, in life, anything can happen.
That is the island, it is yet another piece of proof that anything can happen. Given the right conditions, algae CAN evolve to the point they form an acidic island. Under the right circumstances, meerkats CAN live on a weird algae island. Anything can happen in life, so we need to get use to it.
Anything, including some kid from India living at sea for 227 days.
As stated in my answer to the 2nd question, the island and its inhabitants are a metaphor. The island is Pi giving up; rather to live on this island forever instead of civilization. The meerkats seem to me as mere meerkats or just some sort of food. The treetops are an escape, as they are the only way to live on the island at night. Lastly, the fruit with teeth is probably like Eden's forbidden fruit and luckily for Pi he leaves immediatley as opposed to getting sucked in to this seemingly harmless island.
What might the island, and/or its inhabitants, symbolize? Explain.
The island in Life of Pi symbolizes hope to the people. The reason being is because one can get himself into anything in life, but they should never give up like Pi has not. At one point in the story he had, but he got himself up again and continued his journey. This shows that one can learn many things during their hard times, but it all pays off at the end and the same had happened to Pi. He had done many things to keep himself and Richard Parker alive and by doing so he has learned many things from it.
-Ddolly
I strongly believe that the island symbolizes an aspect of life’s struggles. At first to Pi, the island is a dream and he is overwhelmed with its existence. Yet after he stays on the island, he begins to realize that the island is not safe at all and its appearance deceived him. The island became a test for Pi to continue enduring his journey at sea. This false hope of an inhabitable island helps Pi to strengthen his will to stay alive. He has lasted this long so far and he cannot give up now. Pi states, “I grew weary of my situation, as pointless as the weather. But life would not leave me. The rest of this story is nothing but grief, ache and endurance” (Martel 283). The island was a large obstacle Pi had to overcome in his journey and Pi proved he has the strength to find human civilization no matter how long he had to suffer.
I believe the island represents how man feels in his environment. At first, like Pi, he sees it as welcoming, thinks he completely understands it, and it can be tamed. Soon, man finds out the world is far more dangerous than he can comprehend, and thus he must flee back to familiar settings, since he is not able to cope with change. Pi could have stayed on the island, but he could not fathom its power. Instead of facing his fears, he merely tries to avoid them.
The island symbolizes luck. Pi was the only human to survive the sinking of the ship. He needs food and water while on the boat and he ends up finding the locker which is full of survival supplies. He is able to survive a terrible storm stuck in the lifeboat with Richard Parker. This island symbolizes just another piece of luck for Pi. Even though the island turns out to be dangerous at night, it still helped revive Pi so he could go on living. The inhabitants of the island symbolize the ability for living things to survive in strange, unfamiliar conditions. The meerkats are natives of a desert climate but are able to live on this island. Pi and Richard Parker are able to survive for more than 200 days on a lifeboat with limited supplies.
The island symbolizes hope and life in general. After continuous chapters of despair and Pi giving up, this island is a spark of life for him; it is something to give hima reason to keep his head up and still believe that he will get out of this situation.
I think the island symbolizes progress. Why would there need to be an island between his drifting and reaching Mexico; why not just reach Mexico. I believe the island showed Pi that his training of Ricard Parker was progressive. Even on land the tiger still returned at night to sleep and remained at bay. At this point it wasn't so much about relying on one another for surival so much as for friendship and respect. This is why later in the book Pi is bothered by how the tiger leaves his sight without a decent farwell "look".
-TRIX
I think that the island symbolizes the ocean, in that although at night it can get dangerous, during the day, it is pretty harmless, except the occasional storm, and all the meerkats could represent the fish that RP regularly got from the ocean.
-misbehavin
Religion. I am almost positive the algae island is directly linked to religion. It is a symbol of all religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Muslim. Just as the island floats through the ever-changing and flowing ocean does religion float around the changing of life. As for the meerkats, they represent those who follow the religions. People who live by the rules, follow the practices and have happy lives. While the island provides comfort and heals him, it also has a dark side. When Pi realizes that the island is carnivorous he decides to leave. This parallels with followers who realize many religions are not perfect and do have dark sides. Once a person realizes this they often decide to leave the comfort that the religion brings them and find God on their own path. The tree of fruit only confirms my theory of religion for it almost directly links to the garden of Eden and Christianity.
I think the island represents Pi's hope for finding land. He desperately wants to get out of his situation and find land, such as an island. I think the meercats represent the people that he wishes he would encounter, any humans at all. I think the seemingly impossible island also represents the things in life that seem impossible to us. People often have trouble believing in things that they do not fully understand, such as God, who is also a representation of hope.
-Forest Gump
Personally, I think that the island represents a new beginning. While on the island Pi starts to feel rejuvenated; he feels as if he has found his life and returned to living."I spent the following days eating and drinking and bathing and observing the merrkats and walking and running and resting and growing stronger. My running became smooth and unselfconscious, a source of euphoria. My skin healed. My pains and aches left me. Put simply, I returned to life (Martel,269)." Furthermore, the island represents hope and salvation. Although it was merely impossible for an island such as "Gandhian" to exist, Pi still was saved by an empirically impossible, floating, slab of land.
I couldn't agree with Boo Jones more. I believe that island represented the unknown for Pi, as well as his fears of his situation. Upon arriving at the island, he finds that his situation has been completely turned around, much like a zoo animal suddenly being released into the wild, and he chose to leave his new surroundings rather than adapt to it.
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