Rumana Shakur

December 17th, 2020

Film Lit 2400 – O552 

Final Essay

Changes in Empathy 

As explained in the ‘Empathy’ handout, “Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of  reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another person’s position”. There are also, however, different types of empathy. These are cognitive, emotional and compassionate empathy. Cognitive empathy is  being able to put yourself into someone else’s place, and see their perspective. It enables you to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, but without necessarily engaging with their emotions. It does not, however, really fit with the definition of empathy as ‘feeling with’, being a much more rational and logical process. Effectively, cognitive empathy is ‘empathy by thought’, rather than by feeling. Emotional empathy is when you quite literally feel the other person’s emotions alongside them, as if you had ‘caught’ the emotions. Emotional empathy is also known as ‘personal distress’ or ‘emotional contagion’. This is closer to the usual understanding of the word ‘empathy’, but more emotional. Finally, compassionate empathy is what we usually understand by empathy: feeling someone’s pain, and taking action to help. The name, compassionate empathy, is consistent with what we usually understand by compassion. Like sympathy, compassion is about feeling concern for someone, but with an additional move towards action to mitigate the problem. People who want or need your empathy don’t just need you to understand (cognitive empathy), and they certainly don’t need you just to feel their pain or, worse, to burst into tears alongside them (emotional empathy). Instead, they need you to understand what they are going through and, crucially, either take, or help them to take action to resolve the problem, which is compassionate empathy. Empathy is not to be confused with Sympathy, which more so means to feel bad for or pity not feel what the other person is feeling, entirely. 

 

Book to film translations can be very tricky, some things change and some things are left out in film compared to text for the sake of a smooth flow, which also changes the emphy meter in the story or in a character. Life of Pi by Yann Martel the book and Life of Pi by Ang Lee the movie are vastly different yet somehow maintain similarities. Empathy plays a huge role in  the course of Pi’s 227 days drifting in the middle of the Pacific in a lifeboat with a tiger as his only companion. In the book Pi see’s Richard Parker and is trying to save him and Pi says,  “What are you doing, Richard Parker? Don’t you love life? Keep swimming then! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! Kick with your legs. Kick! Kick! Kick!”(Martel,2001,56). Pi throws a lifebuoy to Richard Parker, who is in the water, and pulls him into the boat before realizing what he has done. This could be considered all three cognitive, emotional and compassionate empathy, Pi saw Richard Parker and understood he (Richard Parker) was suffering and felt sorry he cried,””Richard Parker, is that you? It’s so hard to see. Oh, that this rain would stop! Richard Parker? Richard Parker? Yes, it is you!” I could see his head. He was struggling to stay at the surface of the water”(Martel, 2001,56). Pi understood  his suffering. Afterwards he got emotional and lastly he felt compassionate empathy towards Richard Parker and without even realizing the long term impact of what he has done. He helped an ADULT BENGAL TIGER on the lifeboat with him. He did what he did because of compassionate empathy, he felt what Richard Parker was going through and took action to help. However in the movie, in the calm after the storm, Pi was trying to avenge Orange Juice and the Zebras by confronting the hyena but out of nowhere Richard Parker springs out and kills the hyena. There were no references of empathy, it was completely cut out from the script. Pi never went through saving Richard Parker. 

 

On the contrary, in the book after Pi realized what he had done and “During those long, cold, dark hours, as the pattering of the invisible rain got to be deafening, and the sea hissed and coiled and tossed me (Pi) about, I held on to one thought: Richard Parker. I hatched several plans to get rid of him so that the lifeboat might be mine”(Martel, 2001,85), Pi thought of six ways to kill Richard Parker by poisoning him, pushing him off the boat, sedating him, attacking him, choking him and starving him to death. Which are scenarios deprived of any empathy at all, it more so seems immoral even. However in the movie this never takes place Pi seems to adjust fairly quickly to the idea of cruising with an adult Bengal tiger. Which goes to show  that specifically in this scenario Lee’s Pi  had more empathy compared to Martel’s Pi. Lee’s Pi never considered killing Richard Parker, he had more so decided to coexist with it since he was all alone with no other company. 

 

To summarize it all, book to film translations can be a very prickly thing. Things get left out, some thing’s stay the same and some differ. Which changes the meaning and context to certain scenes. Yann Martel’s version of Pi and Ang Lee’s version of Pi were similar  in many ways that I haven’t mentioned, yet different in many ways. Circling back to empathy, both Pi’s had empathy for Richard Parker, each version of the character in their own way.