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 climbs aboard the castaway’s boat and finds some fish and turtle meat and a few biscuit crumbs. Pi weeps for the dead man and his tears clear out his eyes a little. He rinses his eyes with seawater and his vision returns. Pi immediately sees the butchered body of the castaway on the floor of the lifeboat. Pi confesses that he later used one of the castaway’s arms as fishing bait, and that in a delirium of hunger he ate some of the man’s flesh. Pi says that he still prays for the man’s soul daily.
This is similar to a Biblical scene in which the Apostle Paul has scales fall from his eyes when he becomes a Christian. For Pi the “enlightenment” moment is much more horrible. Even in his animal story Pi admits to cannibalism, so if the animal story is a fiction it does little to absolve Pi of his moral devolution. The need to survive drives him completely.
Themes
