Physical Survival

When placed in an unfamiliar environment, it is essential for one to adapt to the situations around them in order for them to survive. Pi lacked the basic necessities that humans need to survive – water, food and shelter. He needed to adapt and use the resources around him in order to ensure his survival. 

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Since Pi could not drink sea water, he had to retrieve drinkable water by using solar stills to make fresh water from sea water.

“I read the instructions carefully, as the survival manual told me to. I inflated all twelve cones with air and I filled each buoyancy chamber with the requisite ten litres of sea water. I strung the stills together, tying one end of the flotilla to the lifeboat and the other to the raft....” (Martel, 172).

Pi’s resourcefulness and patience aided in his water situation. Since Pi was unable to drink the sea water he had to adapt to his surroundings and use the equipment he had around him to survive.

 

Image from: http://news.bbc.co.uk 

This image above shows two flood survivors, from Aceh, Indonesia, digging a hole in the ground in search of fresh water. The flood occurred late December in the year of 2006. This shows that the survivors had to adapt to their new environment, after the flooding, in order to meet their basic needs and survive. Likewise, Pi had to adapt to his new surroundings and use the solar stills in order for him to obtain fresh, drinkable water and survive. 

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Pi also realizes that he must change his vegetarian ways of life in order to survive on the lifeboat. Pi had to learn to hunt the animals at sea because it came down to making the decision of changing his moral beliefs or death. “I quickly lost my revulsion at touching sea life... I did whatever was necessary to hold a fish down until I could reach for the hatchet and chop its head off,” (Martel, 246).  

I found Life of Pi and The Hatchet, written by Gary Paulsen, to be similar in the way they both talk about survival. In the novel The Hatchet, a young boy’s plane crashes over a deserted island, and he must do everything he can in order to adapt to the new environment to ensure his survival. Much like Pi, the main character in the novel, Brian, acquires an optimistic attitude and becomes much stronger than he was before. Brian uses the resources around him to hunt, fish and create a shelter for himself. Brian also loses his moral values and eats raw turtle’s eggs which is something he normally would not do, just like how Pi eats the raw fish on the lifeboat in order to survive.

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Since Pi needed shelter while on the lifeboat, he decides to build a raft made from the oars, life jackets and the lifebuoy. By creating the raft, Pi creates shelter and is also isolating himself from Richard Parker. This gives him a sense of security which is also an essential aspect Pi requires in order to physically survive his ordeal.

Children love building forts. They build forts to channel their inner decorators, or perhaps their inner hunter-gatherers. Using everything around them from sofa cushions, pillows, comforters and boxes, the children are able to create their own sanctuary to escape the adult world and live in their own imaginary place. It provides them with shelter and an isolated area for their minds to run free of imagination. Similarly, Pi builds his shelter from all the resources around him. Although it was not much, Pi still used his constructive and imaginative skills to build the shelter for himself. His shelter also provided him with happiness and safety since he was able to stay away from Richard Parker who could potentially pose a threat to Pi’s survival.