Life of Pi Group

Question:

bigfatduck2
bigfatduck2
Student
High School - 10th Grade

In Part Two, what animals are on the lifeboat, and what might each symbolize?

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Posted by bigfatduck2 on Thursday June 11, 2009 at 1:52 PM and tagged with animals, life of pi, symbolism.

Answers:

  1. hillp
    hillp

    eNotes Editor

    The animals on the boat are a zebra, which is wounded; a vicious hyena; a loving orangutan; and a tiger with a very human name, Richard Parker. In Pi's first account of what happens on the boat, the hyena kills the wounded zebra and the meek orangutan, then the tiger kills the hyena. But in Pi's second version of the story, the animals become human beings, implying that the beasts are actually symbols of the types of humans Pi must deal with. The zebra is a wounded Chinese sailor who is killed by the ship's vicious cook, or the hyena. The cook then kills Pi's mother, symbolized by the kindly orangutan, and Pi—the tiger in the first story—kills the cook out of revenge for his mother's death.

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    Posted by hillp on Tuesday July 21, 2009 at 12:31 PM