Life of Pi: Part Two (The Pacific Ocean) ~ Chapters 48 – 57

1. Life of Pi: Part Two (The Pacific Ocean) ~ Chapters 48 – 57 HKASL ~ Literature in English

2. Summary • The story of Richard Parker’s capture: • A panther had been killing people near Bangladesh • A professional hunter, Richard Parker, called in to try to capture it • Leaving a goat as bait • Attracted two tigers, a mother and her cub, instead • The mother sedated and the cub picked up • Sent off to the Pondicherry Zoo • The cub was named Thirsty • The names of Richard Parker and Thirsty get mixed up in the documents • The mix-up amuses Mr. Patel so much that he decides to call the tiger cub Richard Parker

3. Summary • Back on the lifeboat… • Pi cheers up a bit: certain the tiger will kill him (nothing he can do) • Overcome by thirst • Explores the lifeboat for water • Details of the boat: • Its benches and oarlocks • Its bright orange color • Its dimensions — twenty-six feet long and eight feet wide • A locker containing emergency supplies under the end of the lifeboat under the tarpaulin, where Richard Parker has his “den”

4. Summary • Back on the lifeboat… • Opens the locker and assesses the contents • Greedily drinking some canned water • Eagerly eating emergency rations • Pi tallies his supplies: he has 31 cartons of rations and 124 cans of water, among other survival items

5. Summary • Building a raft: • To survive with Richard Parker as a companion • To put some distance between himself and the tiger • Using oars, a lifebuoy, and life jackets • Tethers it to the lifeboat

6. Summary • Another battle… • The hyena (whining) Vs. Richard Parker (growling) • The hyena dies without a whimper • Richard Parker turns around • Starts to approach Pi • Distracted by the rolling of the boat and the bounciness of the tarpaulin • A rat appears and runs up onto Pi’s head • Pi grabs and throws it at Richard Parker, devouring it • Just enough time for Pi to escape into his raft

7. Summary • Worries in the raft… • The raft: seaworthy • Floating just above a vast ocean • With sharks all around • Rain falls: to trap fresh water for drinking with a rain catcher • Pi continually checks the knots in the ropes holding together the parts of the raft • Why??

8. Summary • Fanciful ways of killing Richard Parker • Unable to sleep • For entertainment • To wait for the tiger to run out of water and starve • Flaws: • Bengal tigers can swim and drink saline water • Hungry: jump into the ocean and swim out to Pi • Thirsty: drink seawater

9. Summary • The scene after the battle: The first encounter • Richard Parker: • Sated + having drunk rainwater and feasted on the hyena • Looking at Pi: an unusual noise that sounds like prusten • The rare sound tigers use to express harmless intentions • Pi’s decision: try to tame Richard Parker • Uses a whistle on one of the lifejackets as a whip • Shouts across the water • To prove his alpha status • Richard Parker: • Intensely dislikes the sound of the whistle • Lies down in the bottom of the lifeboat

10. Analysis (The Idea of Fear) • Fear takes numerous forms in the text, but its very omnipresence eventually reduces its power over Pi. • Pi: • Terribly self-aware • Recognizes and catalogs the gradations of anxiety he feels from minute to minute: • The blind terror: he jumps into the ocean only to see a shark fin slice through the water • The defensive panic: from facing down a carnivorous, hungry hyena • Dread over his family’s fate

11. Analysis (The Idea of Fear) • Pi’s enormous and all-encompassing fear of Richard Parker makes him feel a little better: • Richard Parker aboard the boat: • Death: inevitable, not just possible • Able to stop worrying about what might happen • Comforted: knowing what will happen, regardless of how horrible that fate is • Accepting his own death: • Makes his fear less paralyzing • Enables him to take action

12. Analysis (The Idea of Fear) • Richard Parker’s unexpected and welcome snort of prusten • Pi’s early inclination: • To run as far away from Richard Parker as he can • As far as the lifeline between the lifeboat and raft will allow • Prusten: A tiger’s way of stating his benevolent intentions • Pi’s fear tempered • A quasi-human thing by Richard Parker rather than his pure animalistic brute strength: a willingness to negotiate • Pi: • the courage to begin training the tiger • to reconsider boarding the lifeboat and not confining himself to his raft

13. Analysis (Similarities between Animals and Human Beings ) • Such a movement of Pi and Richard Parker toward one another • Literally: lessening of physical distance • Message: animals and humans aren’t such different creatures after all (to be amplified over the novel) • Pi: • Omega animals (such as Richard Parker) be obedient to a human trainer • In an effort to climb up the social hierarchy • Tolerating the human alpha creature’s odd demands • Mimicking human behavior • Pi mimics Richard Parker out of respect for the tiger

14. Analysis (Similarities between Animals and Human Beings ) • Names • Zoomorphic ambiguity in their names • The Bengal tiger: Richard Parker (a man’s name) • Pi: a shortened form of the word pisces, or fish • The gray area between humanity and animal nature

15. The End