3. Coming of Age- The coming of age process is not directly defined in the Life of Pi. However, maturity occurs for Pi as a necessity because of his being stranded on a boat for two hundred twenty-seven days. The trying situation of being stranded at sea helped to transform Pi into a mature adult. Fending for himself in the middle the ocean produced a brave and responsible individual.
Neddy Merrill ’s simple belief in changing his life by simply refusing traditional values. The story starts off with Neddy Merrill taking up the challenge of swimming home through his neighbors’ pools, for “the day was beautiful and it seemed to him that a long swim might increase and celebrate its beauty.” (604) Cheever hints a small case of laughter while describing Neddy’s idea: “When Neddy Merrill tries to do something new, something heroic and legendary, all he can come up with is to swim home through a chain of 16 pools.”(The Swimmer 284) His inexpert personality slowly clashes with reality as the story continues and at the end of the story, Neddy finds his house empty, and falls into a deep hole of confusion and pain. The plot of “The Swimmer” is strange; many of its characters and events are figurative, intentionally handing over a “dreamlike effect” (Coale, 46) to the short story. It is not important whether the events stand by reasoning or the laws of nature. Therefore, instead of speaking of the plot as a whole, it would be more correct to challenge event by event, or in this case pool by pool in order to discuss the cause of Neddy’s defeat which starts halfway through his journey.
The captain place is confidant in their ideas to make a sail out of his jacket that allow them sail. The correspondent and Oilier shows brotherhood by working together after the build the sail and only had one oar. Near the end of the story the captain exhibits so true brotherhood. The captain, though injured, remains clear-headed and makes the decisions, which the others unquestioningly obey. However, the captain and the other crew members were struggling to swim to shore, but the captain unselfishly told the local man to help the drowning correspondent “but the captain waved him away, and sent him to the correspondent.:.
He wondered that if he was going to die. The Open Boat The oiler, who is name is Billie, was also in charge of rowing the boat along with the Correspondent. The Oiler had a positive attitude and did not believe in giving up in hope that they would survive. Even though, in the end, he did end up dying, while trying to swim to shore, he never faltered from his positive
The distances vary and the strokes will occasionally vary according to what stroke you do in competitions. The environment is very uniform in swimming. Most of the time you will be looking at the bottom of the pool which becomes increasingly tedious, but usually you're too tired to care. After lots of practice and tough work you finally go to the meets. Meets in swimming are really hyped up.
Tracing Narrative Threads The Name Pi: At the beginning of Life of Pi, we are told that Piscine’s name is derived from a French root, and that he is named after a popular pool in Paris. Pi is the only one in his family to fully allow Mr. Adirubasamy to teach him how to swim; this ties in with the theme of survival, in that Pi is the only one in his family who survives, thanks to his swimming abilities and lack of fear of water. Also, Pi’s name is made fun of and made to be ‘Pissing,’ which is ironic because when he is stranded, he is almost tempted to drink his own urine. ‘Pi’ is also a Greek symbol, which in Math, stands for 3.1415..., etc. Pi, tired of being made fun of for his name, narrates how he wrote his new nickname on the board; “for good measure I added Π = 3.14 and I drew a large circle, which I then sliced in two with a diameter, to evoke that basic lesson of geometry.” There is a great repetition of numbers after the point, which is symbolic of the daily repetitive routine which Pi inherited after the climax, being the ‘point.’ This ties in with the theme of existence, in that, as humans, we live our lives to a mundane, similar routine almost every day; Pi forgets about the essence of time during his struggle to survive, and eventually survival becomes so routine, that it simply just becomes part of his daily existence.
In Wattle Beach he will learn and overtake the curse of Matt’s, free the Bird of Osprey and visit Wiseman’s Cove. Carl is a great character but also unlucky. When he visits Wattle Beach he learns of something named “The Curse of the Matt’s. “Skip… saw what he hadn’t thought to find, not in someone Matt”. Carl gets gauged by his name and not his personality.
On page 6, Dick’s ability to commandeer the attention of the entire beach, as well as Mrs. McKisco’s comments about “the plot” at the beginning of Chapter 2, show this enjoyable, care-free lifestyle of the Divers as something that was aspired to and was envied. Rosemary’s feeling that her swim with the Divers “would always pop into her memory at the mention of swimming” suggests the Divers are living more than the high life; they are, in fact, living the American dream. However, this life of luxury which is, on one hand, so seductive, is also shown to be excessive. Twice in Book 1, Nicole’s consumerist attitude and frivolity with money is demonstrated by Fitzgerald by listing the huge quantities of items she buys, “a dozen bathing suits, a rubber alligator, and travelling chess set…” Nicole’s attitude to shopping is shown to be pointless and shallow and suggests a sort of emptiness in her life. These passages are also very reflective of the attitude towards money that had recently emerged in America after World War One.
In the second paragraph, the author started to wonder “the tarred road would have found it out”. Turn to look the forth paragraph, he said “I was right about the tar: if led to within half a mile of the shore.”, which seems to make him somewhat upset. Then he realized the lake was almost the same as before. We could perceive the delight in his heart by the three words “I knew it”, and the following long poetic sentence described his old memory. In the seventh paragraph, even the changed of track road bothered him.
Elizabeth Bishop states, “I stared and stared and victory filled up the little rented boat” (64-66). The fisherman is filled with victory from doing what other fishermen were unable to do: catch this fish. Even though the author has caught the fish, he admires the fish for what it has overcome and appreciates the magnificence of nature and releases the fish. By reading the poem carelessly, one could think that the fish won the fight, but the fish was not able to escape capture and the fishermen did what others couldn’t: catch the fish. The only