Quartering "Life of Pi": Chapter 37-68

Quarter #3- Life of Pi 

Synopsis
The second part of the novel starts with the sentence, "The ship sank." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, Chapter 37, page 107) Pi doesn't tell the reader how or why yet – but he's in a lifeboat, in the wind and the rain, encouraging Richard Parker the tiger, who is in the water, to swim up to him. Pi throws Richard Parker a lifebuoy and just then realises he probably shouldn't invite strange tigers into his lifeboat. At last, Richard Parker gets onto the lifeboat and Pi jumps overboard to escape from the tiger.
Pi moves back in time a little bit and tells the route his family and himself had travelled, starting in Madras, shipping through the Bay of Bengal, through the Strait of Malacca, Singapore and reached Manila before their ship sank on the Pacific Ocean. He also describes the exact sinking of the ship. The next precise setting is the lifeboat. Pi surveys the scene, the surroundings and the lifeboat itself with all its equipment. After some time, all the animals have been introduced. The zebra with one broken leg, the hyena, Orange Juice the orangutan and Richard Parker the tiger. Further on, Pi imagines his rescue and his family reunion. He remembers his second night on the lifeboat which was one of exceptional suffering because the fight between Orange Juice and the hyena took place and he confronts the fact that his parents and Ravi have most likely died. The result of the fight was that the zebra had died, the female orangutan got beheaded by the hyena and so Pi's only companions are Richard Parker and the hyena, fighting to survive at sea. As the reader continues to read he gets to know why Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger, was named like he was.
Coming closer to the middle of part two, Pi tells the reader more about his feelings, thoughts and about his interaction and connection with Richard Parker and he talks about his food and drink supply from the emergency ration he had found on the boat. At first, Pi wanted to get rid of the tiger, he wanted him to die. He simply wanted to outlast Richard Parker but then he changed his mind. After all, Pi was glad that Richard Parker was there with him because if he had died then Pi would have been all alone. The tiger kept Pi from thinking too much about his family, he pushed him to go on living and so Pi is grateful to have the tiger on the lifeboat as his only companion, since Richard Parker had killed the hyena in a fight. Pi wants to tame the tiger and so Pi creates his own circus called "Pi-Patel, Indo-Canadian, Trans-Pacific floating circus". He tries to make a connection with the tiger, provides him with the fish he catches and with his water supply and Pi even starts to communicate with the tiger but making sure that Pi is the "top tiger" and Richard Parker has to follow him and has his own territory on the lifeboat which he is not allowed to cross and enter Pi's territory.  
 
Characters introduced
Richard Parker- Richard Parker is a three-year old Bengal tiger who is Pi's only companion at sea for most of the survival time. -round character/dynamic character

Zebra- The zebra is also in the lifeboat for a couple of days, suffering from a broken leg and dies a slow and painful death because it gets eaten by the hyena being still alive. -flat character/static character

Hyena- The hyena is another character that lived on the lifeboat for a couple of days but then gets killed and eaten by Richard Parker. -flat character

Orange Juice- Orange Juice is a female orangutan who survives the shipwreck and ends up on the lifeboat but she dies fairly early because she lost the fight between her and the hyena. -flat character

Point of view
At first there is a fictional author's note, explaining the origins of the book but later on the protagonist becomes the narrator at first person's view. This point of view only reveals the thoughts of the protagonist which is most important in the story. The reader is not interested on the personal feelings of the other flat characters so it is good that Yann Martel chose the protagonist to become the narrator.


Setting
At the very beginning the story takes place in Pondicherry, a former French territory of India in the 1990's but then Canada is the next setting in this novel. Well, Canada doesn't really become the setting because Pi and his family does not make it to Canada. Since their ship sank in the Pacific Ocean, the main story takes place there. It is the time at sea, the survival at sea.


Writer's Style
Yann Martel uses a diary-like writing style which is easy to understand and we can also find dialogues in his story. In this section the reader gets confronted with the interjections of the author and now we, as the reader, can really understand and follow the story because we got used to the interjections and know that there isn't only one story.
I started to recognise the different writing styles like the usage of comparison, personification, metaphors and similes. Examples: comparison- "The fish was as strong as an ox." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, Chapter 61, page 204) personification- "The sea moved in a lethargic way, as it already exhausted by the oncoming heat." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, Chapter 62, page 207) metaphor- "Time is an illusion that only makes us pant." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, Chapter 59, page 192) simile- "His paws were like volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica." (Yann Martel, Life of Pi, Chapter 45, page 132)
By the usage of these terms, Yann Martel creates a very visual scene and for the reader it has a huge effect because you, as a reader, can just imagine everything so much better and you are really into the story and feel like you are part of it.

Statement of Themes
I think that there for sure is a minor theme representing Science and Religion or rather the connection between those two categories. Since Pi has a really strong focus on religion throughout this novel which gets clear in this second quarter, another theme would be the belief in God, accepting and sharing different religions.
The act of storytelling and narration is a significant theme throughout this novel. The author keeps interjecting and informs the reader about Pi's family in Canada, so there is more than one story in this novel that the author wants us to know.

The second part of the novel is all about the survival at sea. Therefore a major theme is the survival. I would day the primacy for survival.  This theme is clear throughout his ordeal—he must eat meat, he must take life, two things which had always been anathema to him before his survival was at stake. The reader finds out that Pi is a vegetarian and that the first sentient being he had ever killed was a fish and this action took place while he was fighting for is survival. It is his survival thinking, acting and instinct that makes him able to do things he never thought he would do, concerning his brutality of killing.