Fear In Life Of Pi, By Yann Martel

Fear is Life’s Biggest Obstacle Although most people see fear solely as cowardice and lack of confidence, they tend to dismiss the idea that fear leads to and hinders many other emotions and obstructs your life. Fear appears as uncontrollable and even unavoidable and it takes over the minds and hearts of the public. These fears tantalize us and don’t allow us to think clearly when faced with these traitorous obstacles. Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, states that, “I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life.” Some examples of the daily fears we face are the fear of love and fear of the unknown. Eleanor Roosevelt talks about how the fear of loving another person hurts us and causes us

In the story of Frankenstein, there is fear in the unknown of the technology that flourished. Frankenstein, unknowingly creates something, without consciousness of his fear of the unknown. When the monster emerges and the scientist 's creation actually comes to life, the fear finally sank in. Not having a solid understand or representation of what the monster was or what it was capable of struck fear into Frankenstein. His fear initially prevents Frankenstein from sharing the news of his contemporary monster. His fear even keeps him from comprehending his creation. Not knowing of something drives people insane, literally and figuratively. As humans we are very nosey and it scares us to not be able to have the capacity to know about something in the world. The inability to understand strikes fear in people and twists the minds of others to believe different things. Austin Smith, author of the Doctor Who series, accents on this idea quite well by saying, “People fear what they don’t understand and hate what they can’t conquer.” This explains the idea of being afraid of what people don’t understand very well. When something isn’t fully understood, we open up our minds to different aspects of life that wouldn’t necessarily be true. People come up with outrageous ideas that send others into a panicking flare. This fear prevents us from moving forward in life. Howard Phillips Lovecraft, American author, states that, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” Lovecraft is simply stating that fear is the strongest emotion that has been around since time has started and fear of the unknown is the strongest kind of fear known to man. People have always been afraid of the unknown and that causes us to not advance in many ways of life. Fear is an empowering emotion that restricts people from venturing out. Allowing fear to take