How many of you were shocked on page
99 when we find out for the first time that "Richard Parker" was a
Bengal tiger?!?! Looking back on it, after finishing the book, you may
not remember that there was NO clue until that point that RP was a tiger.
For ex., on p.6 Pi says, "Richard Parker has stayed with me."
On p. 31 Pi says, "I learned the lesson. . . twice: once with Father
and once with Richard Parker." (The parallelism here equates
"Father" with RP--i.e. they are both (human) men.) On p.
42, Martel says, "After all these years, Richard Parker still preys on
[Pi's] mind." And THEN, there is the photograph Pi shows Martel that was
taken at the zoo. Pi taps a photo of schoolchildren and says,
"That's Richard Parker" (87). Martel looks at the photo and
tries "to extract personality from appearance. . . . Richard Parker is
looking away. He doesn't even realize that his picture is being
taken" (87): all words suggesting RP is human. Even when RP
boards the boat, Pi says RP "reached up and pulled himself aboard"
(99), not exactly beast-like verbs.
Why is this significant? Why
wait so long before identifying RP as a tiger?
Richard Parker received his name “because of a clerical error” (132), the hunter who caught the tiger mixed up his own name with the tiger’s, which he had dubbed Thirsty. On the surface, it seems like nothing more than a lighthearted joke. However, little is unintentional in this novel.
ReplyDeleteThere are many possible answers to why Richard’s name is significant. The first would be the role Richard played in the story. On page 99 we learn that Richard Parker is in fact a tiger, not a man as any reasonable reader would have suspected. The quick interpretation is that Richard Parker was named so, just to enable this big reveal to occur. However, I believe this goes further. Throughout Pi’s time at sea, his conditions progressively worsen, he begins to slowly adopt more and more animalistic traits. Pi does things he would never do if not faced with life or death, and even then he is hesitant. In contrast, Richard Parker, being a tiger of course, has no problem devouring a helpless blind man.
Once again, any reasonable person would not believe a tiger was really at sea. Richard Parker isn’t really with Pi. Richard exists as a complete characterization of Pi’s animalistic side. His thirst to live, is the tiger originally “baptized” as “Thirsty” and “Only once the tiger had quenched her thirst, did she turn to the goat to satisfy her hunger”, Pi must survive, however he does not want to sacrifice all he believes in, to push away his faith. So he creates Richard Parker, a sort-of hallucination through whom he can quench his thirst to live, putting his survival first, but still satiate his hunger for knowledge.
Richard Parker, the hunter, was a human who made a living from taking life. The tiger Richard Parker, is also a hunter, however he kills for need, not sport or money. Pi rationalizes taking life through the tiger Richard Parker, a tangible character, but also through the hunter Richard Parker; who serves as a reminder that Pi is only doing what he does out of necessity–thirst. A moral anchor, bolstering the illusion that Pi and Richard Parker are separate entities.
--Alex Tsvetkov
As the story begins, it is already quite apparent what all the different themes of this story are. We are constantly reminded of it throughout the journey and we see how it all connects and makes more sense. Firstly the theme that is apparent is the reason and non-reason duality. Pi is trying to make a point of how life is not how we always expect it to be and how we can always be surprised.
ReplyDeletePeople were expecting the tiger to be a human and with reason, from their point of view Pi seemed to be referring to a human whenever he talked about Richard Parker. However, not once did he specifically say he was not. That is why when it is revealed, it is a great shock to Yann Martel and to us the readers. At this point it is quite apparent that the story is not how we expected. This is a manor of preparation for what is to come next in the story, if he catches our attention at the start of the story it will be easier for us to believe the whole entirety of it.
As well as this first reason, Pi also seemed to refer to Richard Parker in that matter because he respects him enough to do so. After all that they went through he saw what he was like and even got mad at him in the end because he expected a proper goodbye from him once they reached land, but that was not the case. This can also be related to the Animal-Human duality theme. Pi is a proper educated man and is well respected but never expected to see and experience the things he did on the trip. Even though he had to do certain things which haunt him, he experienced many beautiful moments and could finally see things clearly after that. Even though animals and humans are so different, he had to work together and they were able to do it because ultimately we are all part of nature and we are not as different from each other.
We have clearly noticed how nothing in this novel is done without a reason. Every detail was carefully crafted and added together to make this wonderful story. By first keeping Richard Parker’s identity a secret, we could understand what Pi’s view on him was and how confident he was of it. Later, the identity is revealed and also we are explained the story of why Pi has said opinion and it all comes together in a way that makes us think the same way as Pi.
However, despite all of the similarities between animals and humans we are shown how we are still quite different. In the end Richard Parker escapes back into the jungle without looking back at Pi, which upsets him. We must not forget that they are wild animals after all and that Richard Parker simply viewed Pi as a stronger animal that needed to be shown respect but never truly developed a bond such as one we may have with domesticated animals.
- Tomas Onsurbe
Great description Tomas. When I took a second to think I agree heavily with the idea that Pi respects RP so much that he almost intuitively treats him like a human. I wanted to continue that point and expand on it. Pi also wants his listeners to treat the lessons Pi learn from RP early in his life to be treated more as a real and important lesson, rather than just some animal. By doing so the reader gives the topic of the lesson more thought. I do disagree with your point that everything in the book is done without reason. Pi balances with reason and non reason throughout the whole book especially with RP. For example, Pi is very much afraid of RP throughout almost the whole book, but at the same time tries to tame him. This idea also takes place in the decision not to explain RP is a tiger till later because Pi still finds reason in the lessons he learned from RP, but also doesn’t name him in an attempt to validate his words to us.
DeleteZayd
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ReplyDeleteI knew that there would be a tiger on the boat, but I had no idea that Richard Parker was his name. Assuming Richard Parker is human creates a very different initial interpretation of the scene. If I had known that Richard Parker was a tiger from the start, I would’ve felt a lot more incredulous (“WHAT ARE YOU DOING PI?!”). Instead, Pi’s attempt to save Richard Parker felt like the right thing to do. In that moment, something in Pi “did not want to give up on life” (99), a sentiment that is easier to empathize with when that life is assumed to be human. When we find out that Richard Parker is a tiger, we “wake up to what [Pi] was doing” (99).
ReplyDeletePi actually “wakes up” before the reader does, creating interesting misunderstandings. When he said, “Get lost. Drown! Drown!” (99), I was startled. The kind Pi characterized throughout the rest of part one doesn’t seem like the kind of person to say something so harsh. Perhaps this hints at the cruelty that is revealed when we need to survive.
Characterizing Richard Parker in a human-like way also ties into our human-animal duality. During Friday’s discussion, we concluded that spirituality is what sets humans apart from animals. The things that Richard Parker does prior to the tiger reveal, then, are not strictly human. It sows the seeds for the question, “What makes humans different from animals?”
- Estella Yan
Keeping the identity of Richard Parker secret was a way to portray the role Richard Parker played in Pi’s survival at sea. I believe Richard Parker represented the savage side of Pi. During the interview when Pi gives two stories, I think the animal story he gives is a coping mechanism for the true story—the one with the humans. All the grief he experienced over the 227 days at sea—his family drowning, the cook’s brutality, his mother dying, cannibalism, and Pi killing the cook—was too much for his mind to handle.
ReplyDeleteHumans use many methods to cope; detaching from reality is one of the most common. Isolating ourselves in our minds to avoid the terror of reality can keep a person sane. Pi does exactly this by fabricating a story with animals to keep his mind safe from coming into contact with the truth. But when viewing the parallelism between the two stories, it can be inferred that Pi is Richard Parker during his time at sea. He was the one who ate parts of his mother, killed the cook, and eventually killed the Frenchman as well. Richard Parker is the innate savagery within Pi that only awakened in the most desperate of situations.
On page six, when Pi claims Richard Parker has always been with him, he is stating that the savage side of him has always stayed with him. The trauma of what happened to him and his actions became a part of who he is. In part one, Pi was a vegetarian who has a love for animals, so events like drinking the blood of a turtle and killing another human being definitely would leave scars that could not be erased. Richard Parker being a tiger is just what represents the savage in him. Then on page 32, when Pi makes a parallel between his father and Richard Parker, I think he is not only implying that Richard is a human but almost like a father figure to him. Obviously not in the traditional sense, but in the sense that he is someone Pi can rely on. During his days at sea, Richard Parker was the only thing that gave him purpose to continue living. The fear of being eaten alive drove Pi to survive. Only at our most desperate does our will to live become enraged and manifest itself as savagery. That savagery helped Pi survive through his living hell. But he feared it would consume him.
Richard Parker was the closest thing to savagery Pi knew before the sinking of the Tsimtsum. The unforgettable scene of a starved tiger ripping apart a goat solidified that association. Thus it was logical for his mind to associate the tiger with himself in the fabrication of the animal story. Outside of the events of the story, Pi realizes that he is Richard Parker, which is why Richard Parker is portrayed as a human. His mind diverted away from the source of trauma, Pi can admit who he is. Only when telling the story does Pi portray Richard Parker as a tiger because that is the only coping mechanism Pi has to avoid the direct trauma of the story.
-Lance Bi