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Pi’s time on the algae island is one of the strangest, most surreal sections of the book. Pi comes across an island made entirely of algae and inhabited by thousands of docile meerkats. At first he thinks the place is a mirage or hallucination, but when he can actually stand on it he can’t help believing in the island’s existence. By day this island is a paradise, but Pi eventually learns that at night the algae turns acidic and deadly, devouring fish that swim nearby. Pi discovers a tree on the island with black and twisted “fruit” that turn out to be human teeth. He then comes to the awful realization that the island is carnivorous, and that it has eaten a human being before him.
The island acts as a religious symbol for Pi’s spiritual journey. In one sense it represents an easy, shallow kind of faith – it seems stable at first and promises worldly delights of food and comfort, but it has a treacherous underbelly. In another sense the island is a kind of “Garden of Eden,” a place where Pi loses his innocence (whatever he had left after experiencing so much horror). The island seems like an Edenic paradise at first, where the meerkats are tame and peaceful, but upon discovering the “Forbidden Fruit” of the teeth-tree, Pi gains knowledge of the evil the island is capable of. He leaves the place of his own accord, both rejecting an easy, treacherous faith and refusing to live in a spoiled paradise.
The Algae Island Quotes in Life of Pi
The Life of Pi quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Algae Island. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 92
Quotes
By the time morning came, my grim decision was taken. I preferred to set off and perish in search of my own kind than to live a lonely half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous island.
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The Algae Island Symbol Timeline in Life of Pi
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Algae Island appears in Life of Pi. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 92
...describes an “exceptional botanical discovery” that he makes. One day the boat approaches a low-lying island covered with trees. Pi assumes that the island is a mirage, but he decides to...
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Pi finally believes that the island is not a hallucination, and he becomes delirious with joy. He eats some of the...
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A few days later Pi decides to explore the island. It seems large and rises to about sixty feet at its highest point. It consists...
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...days pass and Pi feels all his aches and pains easing. A storm hits the island while he is ashore, but the island absorbs all the waves with barely a tremor....
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...Pi finds something sinister about the situation and wonders more about the nature of the island. He finds his answer days later, when he is exploring the forest.
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Pi begins to understand the awful truth about the island, and he tests his theory that night. He drops one of the meerkats from the...
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Pi realizes that the island is carnivorous. The algae becomes acidic and deadly at night, digesting the ocean fish it...
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The next morning Pi resolves to leave the algae island. He would prefer to die searching for land and other humans instead of living a...
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Chapter 99
...and they do float. Okamoto responds to this by challenging the existence of the algae island.
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Pi says that they don’t believe in the island just because they haven’t seen it, but Okamoto claims that it is “botanically impossible.” Chiba...
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...and Richard Parker with Pi himself. Chiba asks Okamoto about the meerkats and the algae island, but Okamoto only says that he doesn’t know what to think.
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