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Definition of Simile
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like" or "as," but can also... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often use the connecting words "like... read full definition
A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two unlike things. To make the comparison, similes most often... read full definition
Chapter 42
Explanation and Analysis—Orange Juice and Mary:
Life of Pi often uses similes and metaphors to blur the boundaries between animals, humans, and the divine. One occurrence of this is a simile in Chapter 42, when Pi sees Orange Juice the orangutan near the lifeboat after the sinking of the Tsimtsum:
She came floating on an island of bananas in a halo of light, as lovely as the Virgin Mary. The rising sun was behind her. Her flaming hair looked stunning.
By comparing the image of the orangutan backlit by the sunrise to that of a divinely shining Virgin Mary, Pi emphasizes the animal’s comforting maternal presence. This makes more sense when it is later revealed in Pi’s human version of the story that Orange Juice represents Pi’s mother. This comparison also foreshadows Orange Juice’s role as a divine protector, a purpose that the holy figure serves for many Christians, as Orange Juice saves Pi from the hyena. However, in the same way that Mary was unable to prevent Jesus’s tragic fate of being crucified, Orange Juice is also unable to save Pi (who often compares himself to Jesus) from his suffering on the boat. Nonetheless, the comparison demonstrates how beauty and comfort can be found in unexpected places. It also reflects how religion has shaped Pi’s perspective of the world and helps him cope with his difficult situation.
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Chapter 46
Explanation and Analysis—Family Tree:
At various points, the book uses similes to show how Pi tries to distance himself from his grief through poetic language. When coping with the death of his family in Chapter 46, Pi tries to compare his family members to parts of a tree:
To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures to people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing—I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.
At first, Pi connects his grief to extremely personal moments one would associate with family members. However, when he tries to twist these intimate insights into figurative language that is broader and more beautiful for his storytelling, he eventually finds the task too difficult. While he is able to change or spice up his story at times, his grief is one of the things he struggles to talk about or make a story out of. Beyond Pi's storytelling, this is evident with Pi in the modern day, when he laments that he can no longer remember his mother’s face and is private about his wife and children.
These similes emphasize how Life of Pi is an adult Pi’s constructed version of his childhood and time at sea—it isn't a straightforward retelling. These added moments of figurative language give insight into how adult Pi is still coping with these experiences. His inability to produce additional flowery language about the loss of his mother reflects how there are some things he can’t weave into a more compelling story. Pi takes his mother’s death the hardest, which is made obvious by his simile about her (he compares her to the sun that provides trees with the energy to live) and by his inability to expand more intimately on his memories of her. Likewise, his reconfiguration of his mother into Orange Juice in the animal version of the story also displays his struggle with confronting his grief, since the switch allows for some distance from seeing his mother killed and eaten.
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Chapter 78
Explanation and Analysis—Sky and Sea:
Pi describes and sometimes personifies the sky and sea in various ways, from lively, antagonistic forces to apathetic and inanimate to intimate friends. In Chapter 78, he describes the changing nature of the sky and sea using personification, simile, and imagery:
There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain…The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting rain on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.
There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent.
Pi’s intense focus on the sky and sea is partially due to how these two forces make up the entirety of his surroundings beyond the boat, trapping him on all sides. His life and death depend greatly on the weather of the sky and sea, and his lengthy descriptions emphasize this all-consuming nature. The long list of descriptions reflects the endless nature of the sky and sea. He uses personification (the clouds "invade" the sky and the sea "whisper[s]") as well as simile (the sea "roar[s] like a tiger") to emphasize how fearsome and powerful the natural elements are, and how small and vulnerable he is in comparison. To make this descriptions even more impactful and help the reader comprehend the magnitude of what he's experience, Pi also weaves in vivid imagery: the sky is "a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud," and the sea "thunder[s] like avalanches."
The fact that Pi cannot stick to just one comparison also shows his inability to fully understand or articulate the nature of the sky and sea. Yet, all he can do is try and better understand the two, because they are a constant presence in his current situation. Furthermore, Pi’s inconsistent characterization of the two forces demonstrates how he views the sky and sea simultaneously as beautiful parts of God’s world; inanimate and uncaring forces of nature; and, more bitterly, as two of many things trying to kill him. The comparison of the sea to the tiger is especially telling in this regard, as the forces are like Richard Parker in their dual ability to provide comfort and pain.
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