Ashley Waller
Final Essay
December 17, 2020
ENG2400
Life Of Pi
According to the definition of deontology ethics, “is one of those kinds of normative theories regarding which choices are required, forbidden, or permitted.” In Life of Pi, published in 2001 by Yann Martel, he depicts questions of morality with the primitive imperative of survival. While trapped in the ocean, Pi’s life-threatening encounters challenge the dignity of his values and beliefs. His pluralistic faith reveals that morality is less about religion in particular, and more about maintaining one’s integrity, humanity, and self-respect. When Pi finds himself in a desperate struggle between faith and reason, while facing imminent extinction, Martel considers acts that are good and unethical actions. The transformation of Pi from a benevolent human being into a bestial survivor, as well as his final salvation, shows that, due to the circumstances, morality is indeed malleable, and that a moral code itself is a fluid entity that is maintained according to free will and interpretation in the mind of the individual.
Empathy can be defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” In the narratives that pose philosophical concerns and questions about what is human, Yan Martel lends animals a central role. They focus on common subjects, despite belonging to various genres, and both involve the process of their primary character encounters in which their point of view shifts as their sense of empathy changes. Pi starts as a vegetarian in Life of Pi, who retains firm convictions of love for animals and other things on earth, but is compelled by circumstance to abandon this existence while residing in a boat inhabited by other humans for 227 days at sea.
Pi fights for life following the sinking of the Tsimtsum against almost unlikely odds. In the middle of the Pacific for 227 days, Pi is stranded on a small lifeboat, with a tiger for company. His ordeal, however, entails not only escaping hunger, but also shielding himself from the sun, sharks, excessive wetness, dehydration, hurricanes, and Richard Parker, of course. When he has to slaughter and consume fish and turtles, Pi is quickly forced to abandon his lifelong pacifism and vegetarianism.
“Life of Pi” is a brilliantly filmed movie that resides right in between the fantasy and action realms. It was thought for years to be not suitable to be adapted for a movie, adapted from the Yann Mantel novel of the same name, about a young Indian girl trapped adrift on a raft with a tiger, hyena, orangutan, and zebra. In Ang Lee, who wanted to film digitally and shoot 3D, Pi eventually met his intrepid producer, and the result was a vivid, amazing visual experience that looked nothing like anything that had come before it. The viewer hears about how Pi got its name in the early scenes. Pi was mocked over his full name, Piscine, so he changed his name to avoid the teasing. We have a wide-angle shot in this scene where Pi is out in front of the class asking his classmates to name him Pi. This shot is successful as it allows the viewer to see and appreciate Pi as we can respond from the point of view of his class members as we are watching him. The illumination is also dark and dreary in this picture, which means that school is not a fun and exciting spot. When he is trapped in the lifeboat, this coincides with the colors, as the world is vividly lit, indicating that they are two different locations.
His mother plays the traditional role in the household, as Pi came from an Indian background, who plays a housewife and has no input in what choices are being made in the family business or other family problems. In the end, Pi claims, “My mother fought against an adult man.” He was cruel and muscular’ (Martel 172) and Orange Juice was killed by the hyena in which the hyena is the chef and Orange Juice was the mother in the case of the animals in the lifeboat. This illustrates that the characters of both Orange Juice and Pi’s mother are cool and compassionate and both are mothers who will do anything to save their boy. Pi’s mother plays the role of a housewife and does all the cooking, washing, and care of the children, while the father does the job for “men” only, such as business work and family decision-making. Orange Juice plays the role of a mother who in contrast to a male hyena, lives with her children and is a lesser species. Also, Richard Parker, the tiger stuck on the mother of the lifeboat who was shot dead while attempting to protect him from a hunter, is in the plot. While all three of them died, all three of the mothers have common features that reflect courage by attempting to defend their son. As he switches the tale with the substitution of the hyena, zebra, and orangutan by a baker, sailor, and Pi’s girlfriend, he compares the orangutan to the mother of Pi, demonstrating that both women have identical characteristics. In the book, the lives of women are confined to all that needs to be achieved at home, and their lives do not move through their homes. They didn’t discuss any other female characters in the text other than Orange Juice, the mother of Pi, and the mother of the tiger, which shows that there are only a few female characters that matter and make a difference to the Life of Pi.
