The gigantic ugly ship slowly chugs its way through the Pacific. On it is a Hindu family, my family, prepared to start a new life in Canada. Suddenly, the ship goes down and I am on a lifeboat. Alone. I never got to kiss my mother goodbye, embrace my dad, or say a word to my only brother. My family has been unwilling taken away from me and I’m lonely and heartbroken. In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the reader is thrust into Pi’s position and it soon becomes clear how valuable, unbelievable and precious life really is, and how we should never take it for granted.
When drifting in the Pacific, Pi witnesses animals savagely devouring each other numerous times. He starts to realize that what animals have done, people have done too. The animals are meant to say: What are we not capable of? Whatever you believe, no matter how crazy or weird it is, live it to the extreme. So many of us take our lives for granted and never express who we really are, even though we could be dead in a heartbeat. “Now I will turn miracle into routine.” (page 148) Life itself is a miracle! Everyone needs to start treating life as that, it really is a miracle.
“It was something to pull me out of my limited mortal ways and thrust me into a state of exalted wonder.” (page 233) The lightning Pi sees is wondrous; he’s getting a taste of how beautiful life really is. The sooner the rest of the world can see it, the better off we’ll all be. There are those in the world who choose to see everything in a pessimistic view. “That’s right, we believe what we see.” (page 294) Well, if we decide and believe what we see, why can’t we decide to see things in an optimistic view? People start to believe that life really is terrible and they give up hope, just as Pi does at one time in the novel. “With the very first rays of light it came alive in me: hope.” (page 119) Pi believed he wouldn’t make it through the night alive, but when the sun came up, hope came back. His hope did begin to dwindle though, as the day went on and he wasn’t saved. Martel seems to be telling the reader to never give up hope—no matter how bad things get—everything will get better. I fully agree with him.
“Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.” (page 297) This quote is definitely my favorite from the whole novel. All of the ideas mentioned in the quote are so unbelievable, but with faith many people believe all three. If these hard to believe ideas were gone, life as we know it would be demolished and gone forever. Our beliefs are what make us who we are and define us from every other being in the world.
After drifting on a humungous for an enormous amount of time, the sandy beaches of Mexico are heaven. Right away Richard Parker deserts me and I feel as though part of me just left forever. Thankful is the only word that can describe how I feel now. Thankful for my life, thankful God let me live, thankful that after leaving for a while my hope of survival came back. Never again will I take any part of my life for granted; I see now how much of a miracle it really is.
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