Part 2 of Life of Pi opens with the ship sinking, and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat in the midst of utter chaos. This chaos includes seeing a Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker in the water. After Richard Parker boards the lifeboat, Pi then realizes the dangers of sharing such a lifeboat with an animal as a tiger. This realization leads Pi to throw himself into the water. This section of the book reminds the reader the power and strength one has to avoid death. The reader reads about many near fatal incidents, and yet life continually surprises us with its might and will power. For example, Pi survives his forty foot fall through the air and lands unharmed on the lifeboat's tarpaulin cover. Then, the zebra survives the fall but with a broken leg. As Pi analyzes his surroundings, he realizes that he must become more mature and strong willed if he wants to survive the waters.
Even though I liked the first part of this reading assignment, I am not a big fan of what happened next. As the animals and Pi are stuck on the lifeboat, the hyena becomes restless and bites off the zebra's broken leg. Not only does the hyena eat that broken leg, it then decapitates the orangutan's head. This violence and brutality teaches Pi a lesson: the qualities a human or animal exhibit when unprovoked can vary extraordinary from those that same human or animal will show if attacked or threatened. Also, after Orange Juice strikes the hyena, he realizes that personality is something separate and distinct from instinct. After the brutal deaths of the zebra and the orangutan, Orange Juice, Pi fears that Richard Parker will kill him. Pi then devises a plan to increase the distance between the two by building a raft. This raft proves to be sea worthy, and Pi tries to prove he is stronger than the tiger by using a whistle from one of the life jackets as a whip and shouts across the water.
This reading assignment has been by far my favorite. I just couldn't stop reading after Pi throws himself into the water. I can't wait to see what happens next!
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