Aspiring

Author’s note: This is a response to the book Life of Pi. My main focus of this piece was a metaphor the author said in an interview. "The idea of a religious boy in a lifeboat with a wild animal struck me as a perfect metaphor for the human condition. Humans aspire to really high things, right, like religion, justice, democracy. At the same time, we're rooted in our human, animal condition. And so, all of those brought together in a lifeboat struck me as being... as a perfect metaphor." I did write a short response on this metaphor but I wanted to do my essay on it because I felt there was a lot more ideas I could put in it.

In life we face hardships that keep us from aspiring. In the book Life of PI the life boat symbolizes just that. The boat shows a boundary that keeps us from reaching our dreams. In life the boundary is many things including other people but most importantly ourselves.

The main character, Pi, wants to become greater things in life.  In the book Pi is very religious and follows many religions. When the Tiger is in the boat with him it is really him in his animal condition. While the real Pi is trying to figure out how to survive without going against any religions the Tiger is surviving any way he can. In this situation doubt is his hardship because he fighting against two sides of himself. One side (the tiger) wants to survive any possible way, while Pi is doubting going against his religions to keep himself alive.

The blind man in the book symbolizes Pi's voyage. During his voyage in the life boat he is lost. When the Blind man came, Pi was having suicidal thoughts. Again with the blind man just like the tiger it was Pi in another state. In this case it was a suicidal state. He felt that he could not hold up any longer.  

For me I was able to take out of the book the idea that the one person who stops us from aspiring in life the most, is ourselves.  It’s you who keeps yourself from reaching your full potential.