Pi Patel Vs. Chris Mccandless

1936 Words8 Pages
Darek Wilcox Life of Pi The novel Life of Pi written by Yann Martel is a story about a sixteen year old boy who becomes stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a life boat with a group of dangerous exotic animals. Throughout the novel Pi is forced to adapt to his new lifestyle at sea and learn how to cope with the situation of his shipmates. The problems Pi faces in his adventure can be directly related to those of Chris McCandless from the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. Both boys had to struggle in harsh environments to survive and quickly learn what it would take for them to live through their ordeals. In Life of Pi sixteen year old Piscine Patel gets stranded at sea on a life boat after the cargo ship that he and his family was traveling on sank. Along with Pi on the boat is a wounded zebra, a hyena, a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and a female orangutan name Orange Juice who floated in on a net of bananas. Stricken with fear by the hyena and tiger Pi quickly learned that he would need to conquer the animals if he was going to have any chance of survival. Being the son of an important zookeeper in India Pi had learned at a young age all about exotic animals, their habits and what they need to survive. This strong incite made him well prepared to take on the animals, but before he was able to start the hyena ate the wounded zebra alive and killed Orange Juice. With Richard Parker nowhere to be found on the boat Pi decided that the only way in which he would not be next on the hyena’s menu was to kill the animal himself. “I was next. That much was clear to me… I raised my hands to the level of my chest-the weapons I had against the hyena… Just before throwing myself upon the hyena, to collect myself before the struggle, I looked down. Between my feet, under the bench I beheld
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