Life of Pi- Innocence

~Author's Note: In LA we read the book, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. We had to write an essay and finally, I settled on an innocence theme. In this I exlained about Pi losing his innocence over the course of the book, which had three parts. Please give some feedback. - English @ ACMS

Innocence

Innocence; a state, quality, or fact of not committing a crime. Innocence; a word used on a range of people and animals, from a baby infant to an unicorn. A term that can also be applied to Piscine Moliter Patel, the main character in the book "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Pi has 3 different religions, Christianity, Muslim, and Islam. When he turns 16, he sets out on a journey where he loses all of his innocence and temporarily loses faith in his religion.

Many events lead up to this tragic loss of Pi's. The first event was placed on the lifeboat with Pi and Richard Parker. In part one, Pi went from huddling in a corner and leaving the animals alone to killing the hyena and eating it hungrily. In part two, it is the cook that Pi kills, as the cook is symbolic of the hyena. Since the hyena is the cook, Pi ends up eating the cook. Pi becomes a cannibal, which further destroys his innocence.

Another example of Pi losing his innocence is where went from crying over killing the flying fish for food to the relishing in the killing of the dorado. His religions and vegetarianism were set aside in this, as his survival instincts took over. They were his first "kills" besides the cook, and while he may regret the kills, he cannot take them back.

The third event where Pi lost his innocence was when he killed his first turtle. He had made other kills before, mainly fish, but the killing of the turtle symbolized that Pi was symbolically killing one of his religions and god. In the Hindu beliefs, turtles are extremely sacred animals as their shell represents heaven and their underside represents earth. Therefore, a turtle is an animal whose "magic" unites heaven and earth. Another reason turtles are important to Hindus is that they believe turtles are the second incarnation of their god, Vishnu. It was evident in Part II that he lost his faith in the way that he did not mention religion nearly as much as in Parts I and III

There are a few other parts where Pi's innocence is torn, but the climactic moment that finalized it was the death of the blind man. When the blind man dies, Pi describes it as "killing a part of himself that will never come back to life." That part of him was his innocence. When he ate the flesh of himself, he brought himself down to cannibalism, an act that will surely destroy his innocence and greatly harm his beliefs. Not only is he eating meat, but meat of his own kind.

In summary, Pi begins his journey in Part I with his innocence and his many religious beliefs. He loses part of his religious beliefs In Part III, he walks away scarred, wiser, and much more knowledgeable about religion than he ever had been before. He does end up getting his religion back. However, he lost something on his long journey he will never get back. His innocence.

Life Of Pi- Quote

Author's Note: We had a homework assignment of... "Explain your interpretation of Martel's statements that 'the idea of a religious boy in a lifeboat with a wild animal struck me as a perfect metaphor for the human condition. Humans aspire to really high things, right, like religion, justice, democracy. At the same time, we're rooted in our human, animal condition. And so, all of those brought together in a lifeboat struck me as being... as a perfect metaphor.'"

What he means is that humans have animal-like personalities. We learn to figure out how to cooperate with others in religion, work or school. It is like an ecosystem, certain people on top, many people on bottom. We all have our differences but we also have the same attributes. Also, many animals have different attributes such as being carnivorous, lazy or a predator. Same in the human world. We might be very lazy, or be carnivorous, but we all are the one and the same, animals and humans.

Fun Fact: Did you know humans are classified as mammals? Another reason to prove we are *animals*.