Summary Of Piscine Molitor Patel's Life Of Pi

The story of Piscine Molitor Patel-further referred to as Pi-is a story of passion, wits, and perseverance. From the beginning, the scene is set as Pi-the main character in the novel-describes his current situation as he talks about schooling and a large portion dedicated to talking about animals. The Patel family owned a zoo in Pondicherry, India which was a large part of the story, along with Pi’s later discovered, religious beliefs. The Patel’s decide to move to Canada for a fresh start, in doing so they had to sell the animals from their zoo and would ship them on the boat which they travelled on. That boat would go on the sink and Pi would have to go through 227 days alone at sea with no one but himself and a tiger within his lifeboat. During his time as a castaway, one message could be observed time and time again; survival predominantly trumps everything. This is first exemplified when Pi stopped his religious practises only a week after the sinking occurred. Secondly, Pi would resort to the unruly

Pi can be quoted as saying “I will confess that I caught one of his arms with the gaff and used his flesh as bait. I will further confess, driven by the extremity of my need and the madness to which it pushed me, I ate some of his flesh”(Martel, 284), while most would consider cannibalism extremely unethical, it is especially immoral given that Pi is highly religious and the religions which he practised do not stand by cannibalism and Pi would be punished severely if said actions were brought to light. This point illustrates that survival will almost always overcome morals as in no other situation, would Pi be observed as doing such an action as cannibalism. Furthermore, he fully understood the risks involved with consuming human flesh but again, given the situation, if he had not taken that risk, he more than likely would have succumbed to