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
Pi presents a list of training suggestions for taming a wild animal at sea. He suggests using a sea anchor to make the lifeboat roll in the way that makes the animal (Richard Parker) seasick. Then one should blow a whistle furiously and stomp, and when the animal steps onto your new territory, blow the whistle more and makes the lifeboat roll. The animal will then associates its nausea with the sound of the whistle. Pi suggests making the boat roll until the animal is vomiting, but then to stop. He says to repeat this routine until the animal learns to retreat at the whistle.
The lifeboat now becomes a sort of zoo enclosure or tiger cage, and Pi adapts his training methods to this environment. The essentials of animal taming that he outlined before are still the same, though – he shows confidence and takes dominative action, and repeats the lesson over and over until the animal learns.
Themes
