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Chapter 56
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Life of Pi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival
Religion and Faith
Storytelling
Boundaries
Summary
Analysis
Pi is cured of his hopelessness and terror by Richard Parker himself. The tiger seems sated with rainwater and hyena, and he looks at Pi and makes a strange sound. Surprised, Pi recognizes this sound as prusten, a very rare noise that tigers sometimes make to express friendliness and peaceful intentions. At that moment Pi decides to tame Richard Parker. He knows that he cannot kill the tiger, so he resolves to live peacefully with him.
Pi admits that part of him is glad that Richard Parker is still alive, as he is a companion and a distraction from grief and insanity. Pi then remembers everything he has learned about taming wild animals. He takes a whistle from one of the life jackets and shouts across the water about the “greatest show on earth,” standing and blowing the whistle to show his alpha status. The tigers roars angrily at the sound but then he backs away and lies down in the bottom of the lifeboat.
Richard Parker is a constant danger to Pi, but he also saves Pi’s life with his very presence. Pi now has a reason to live – to tame Richard Parker and live peacefully with him – and a constant distraction from the loss of his family and his own total isolation. All of Pi’s earlier digressions about animal-training now become important.
Themes
Literary Devices
