Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Life of Pi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival
Religion and Faith
Storytelling
Boundaries
Summary
Analysis
Finally the sun rises, and with it Pi’s hope returns. He feels sure that he will be rescued soon and he thinks of his family, but the horizon is empty. When he looks into the lifeboat Pi sees that the hyena has bitten off the zebra’s broken leg. The zebra is still alive and grinding its teeth in pain. Pi feels anger and sadness on the beautiful creature’s behalf, but then he drops these feelings to focus on his own survival.
Pi is still relatively naïve in clinging to hope of immediate rescue, but this naivety is being swiftly crushed by the violence taking place in the lifeboat. When the two Mr. Kumars visited the zoo it was the Grant’s zebra that they marveled at, and now Pi sees that ideal of animal beauty and grace being defiled.
Themes
Pi starts to feel seasick and he changes position on his oar. He sees Orange Juice and crawls closer to look at her. She is clinging to the boat’s gunnel and panting with seasickness. Pi can’t help laughing at how human the orangutan looks in her position of discomfort.
Pi finds some comfort at first in Orange Juice’s presence, as she is the most human-like of the animals in the lifeboat. Because of her appearance he is able to temporarily forget that she too is a wild animal.
Themes
Pi also marvels that the hyena hasn’t attacked Orange Juice, and he muses on how these two species have never interacted in the wild, as they are usually separated by an ocean. He imagines a zoo enclosure where orangutans and hyenas live peacefully together. That afternoon a sea turtle bumps against the lifeboat. Pi tells it to go find a ship, and it disappears.
Connected with their extreme will to survive, Pi also starts to see how differently animals can act when thrown out of their natural environment. Pi himself must take advantage of this kind of zoomorphism in order to live peacefully with the other species.
Themes
