Life of Pi Part 2, Chapter 37 - 52
Part 2 begins with the sinking of the ship, as Pi finds himself aboard a lifeboat and notices Richard Parker, a Bengali tiger struggling to remain afloat in the tumultuous sea. Pi is distressed at having lost his brother, and parents, as he throws a lifebuoy for the tiger without truly considering what he is doing. He realizes the danger of being aboard a lifeboat with an adult tiger and tries to shove the tiger off the boat as he begins to climb onto the boat. The tiger manages to climb on, and Pi jumps off the boat over an injured Zebra lying in the boat. He explains how the ship had sunk in the Pacific, four days after they had left the Philippines. Pi had been woken from his sleep by a loud explosion and set out to investigate. He had tried to wake his brother but Ravi had refused to be woken. Pi wandered onto the deck of the ship into the rain and realized that the ship was listing hard to one side while producing loud groaning noises. He began to panic as he attempted to return to his family but found the stairwell flooded with water, and the corridors filled with animals that had escaped their cages. He finds three crewmen but they only speak Chinese, they put a lifejacket on him and throw him over the side of the ship. His fall is broken by a soft tarpaulin that covers a suspended lifeboat on the side of the ship.
A grant Zebra follows Pi and jumps gracefully towards the boat, but he misses the tarpaulin and crashes into the boat’s bench which causes the boat to descend to the ocean. Pi returns to the events after he had rescued Richard Parker, and jumped into the ocean. He came to regret that decision very quickly as he soon saw the fins of a shark cutting the surface of the ocean. Pi jams an oar onto the lifeboat to lift himself out of the water but yet remains away from the boat with the tiger. The adult Pi still wonders what led him to hold onto the oar so desperately and prevented him from slowly descending into the comforting end of the ocean. The next morning, Pi notices that the zebra has a badly injured back leg and wonders why Richard Parker hadn’t yet killed the animal. He is convinced that the tiger is hiding under the tarpaulin that still covers half the boat but that belief is soon put into question as a hyena comes out from under the tarp. Pi realizes that the hyena could not have shared such a small space with a tiger, but he also realizes that the crewmen had thrown him into the boat with the knowledge that the hyena was in it. Pi is glad to have the hyena instead of the tiger, as he feels the latter would’ve been more dangerous.
There are no human survivors in the wreckage, but Pi soon notices an orangutang from the zoo called Orange Juice. He recalls that Orange Juice had two small children back at the zoo, as he notices her floating on a pile of bananas held together with netting. He brings the ape aboard the boat and retrieves the netting that held the bananas together causing them to sink. Pi lays the net over the tarpaulin hoping to create a boundary for the animals and convinces himself that people would’ve noticed the sinking of the ship. He believes that rescue is only a little time away and that he will soon be reunited with his family.
The hyena begins to behave weirdly as it runs in circles around the zebra, and then later wedges itself behind the zebra. He remembers that Hyenas are dangerous creatures in a pack, but he notes the ugliness of the animal that is aboard his boat as night begins to fall. He spends a tiring night, and overhears a commotion from under the tarp, as the light of day returns he is horrified to note that the hyena had taken the broken leg of the incapacitated Zebra. The seasickness causes him to throw up, and he approaches Orange Juice, which is seasick as well. Pi notices how human the Orangutang appears in its distress and marvels at the distance that it had maintained with the Hyena since the two animals had never truly interacted with one another in the wild.
Pi notices sharks and fish in the sea as well as the mournful expression of Orange Juice as she looks into the ocean as well. He realizes that her mournful attitude is perhaps an indication of the grief she feels at losing her sons, the grief that Pi begins to share as he comes to terms with the death of his family. The Hyena suddenly attacks the Zebra who tries to repel the predator but fails miserably as the Hyena begins to eat the insides of the still-living Zebra. Pi is surprised by Orange Juice when she roars aggressively at the Hyena and watches as the two continue to do so for a long time. The next day Pi is horrified to see that the Zebra has survived the night even though his insides are spilled onto the floor of the lifeboat. The animal dies later in the afternoon, then the Hyena attacks Orange Juice who knocks the hyena on the head, but is ultimately defeated and beheaded. Pi finds the ape’s body lying headless with its arms stretched out like the crucified Christ. He prepares to fight the hyena but notices the head of Richard Parker under a bench. He retreats and faints on the tarpaulin. Pi explains that Richard Parker had been captured by a hunter who had been commissioned to hunt a panther that had been wreaking havoc on a village in Bangladesh. The hunter had set a trap for the panther and instead captured a mother tigress with her baby cub he had then named thirsty. A shipping clerk’s error had led to the cub being called Richard Parker in the forms, an error that had greatly amused Pi’s father who had decided to christen the cub with the human name, Richard Parker.
The confirmed presence of the apex predator gave Pi some relief as he suddenly concluded that he could not possibly survive on the boat much longer. He is surprised that the tiger has managed to remain hidden for so long and assumes that it is either injured or seasick. The tiger’s presence also explains why the Hyena had chosen to restrict himself to such a small portion of the boat, as it had feared to intrude the tiger’s territory. Pi decides if he is going to eventually die, then he should make the effort to satiate his thirst and begins to go over all the details of the boat. Pi is pleased to note that things like the lifebuoy aboard the white boat are orange, a holy Hindu color. He is unable to find any supplies, and so finally decides to uncover the tarpaulin that hides Richard Parker’s den. He removes the cover and moves a bench to close the tiger’s boundary and notes the animal full size for the first time. Pi finds a large supply of water, and food in a chest in the boat, and happily exults that there is yet hope for him to survive. He carefully inventories all of his possessions that including cans of water, biscuits, rocket flares, a knife, a notebook, and other paraphernalia.
Analysis
The adult Pi discusses the significance of territory for wild animals, and how zookeepers were able to ensure the animals led a peaceful existence with clearly demarcated territory boundaries. This information becomes important for the reader in this section. Pi's understanding of the importance of territory to animals like the hyena, and Richard Parker becomes the fundamental reason for his survival. He uses the net, tarpaulin, and the benches of the lifeboat to create makeshift enclosures for the animals that allow them to experience a modicum of control in the chaotic circumstances. Pi spends a great amount of time waiting for rescue, as he feels that the disappearance of the ship is certain to be noted. The reader ought already to be aware that Pi does not get rescued so quickly, partly from the descriptions of his hardship in Part 1, and partly from the understanding of the symbol of the ship. The ship is called Tsimtsum, a name that denotes the Jewish concept that was propounded by the religious scholar Issac Luria, which happens to be related to the religious studies that Pi pursues at the university. The concept of Tsimtsum states that God withdrew or contracted his light to bring forth creation and free will. In this way, the sinking of the ship can be looked at as a symbol of God removing himself from Pi's life to have him face his travails alone.
Martel later elucidated that the animals on board the lifeboat were meant to represent certain traits. The hyena represented greed, the zebra represented exoticism, and the Orangutang represented motherhood. The reader will later learn that the animals also serve as representations of human beings in Pi's second version of the story. The Hyena becomes the greedy french cook who takes to cannibalism, the zebra becomes a patient Chinese sailor who bears the cruelty of the cook without protest, and the Orangutang becomes Pi's mother. The most harrowing sequence in this section is certainly the death of the Oragutang which seems to affect Pi far more deeply than the death of the zebra.
