Dialectical Journal Of Pi's Life

When Pi’s life is put in serious danger, he has to adjust his wants and needs of many different aspects of his life. Pi was living what he called a perfect life. From spending most of his days with animals to practicing swimming, he learned to love everything about his life. However, things changed when a ship that his entire family on sank in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Pi was able to escape onto a lifeboat, but had to learn how to adapt to his new and scary circumstances. Instead of freaking out and feeling sorry for himself, Pi learned that if he wanted to survive this horrific accident, he needed to change his wants and needs of his life. He needed to change his lifestyle, his views on religion, his eating habits, and what he

Even though Pi was living in the perfect life, the ship sinking caused his whole lifestyle to be flipped upside down. As one can imagine, being alone with a very scary animal in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is extremely terrifying. At the beginning of Part 2, Pi felt very helpless and was extremely scared of his circumstance. “I looked out at the empty horizon. There was so much water. And I was alone. All alone. I burst into hot tears. I buried my face in my crossed arms and sobbed. My situation was patently hopeless” (169). As expected, it takes a lot of time for this big of an adjustment in a person’s life to take place. However once Pi adjusts to this different lifestyle, he becomes very comfortable and is able to calm himself down. He remembers, “I kept myself busy. That was one key to my survival. On a lightboat, even on a raft, there’s always something that needs doing” (190). He then listed a schedule of twenty two different activities that he did every single day. His mindset was if he was able to keep himself busy, which would force himself to stay focused, he would be able to keep himself calm. As a child, Pi’s lifestyle consisted of being able to do whatever he wanted at any given

Early on in the book, it was very apparent that Pi took religion very seriously. His childhood, however, was about trying to find that perfect religion for him. Pi said, “I am a Hindu because of a sculptured cones of red kumkum powder and baskets of yellow turmeric nuggets, because of garlands of flowers and pieces of broken coconut, because of the clanging of bells to announce one’s arrival to God” (47). Through Pi’s childhood, he was brought up at a Hindu mostly because of his parents. As a child, one does not usually get to decide what religion he/she is. Instead, one most likely follows his/her parents are. If necessary, a change in religion usually does not happen until adulthood. For Pi, this change happened very early on in his childhood. Pi found Christianity to be incredibly interesting and wanted to be a part of it. When talking to the priest Pi said, “Father, I would like to be a Christian, please.’ ‘You already are Piscine- in your heart. Whoever meets Christ in good faith is a Christian. Here in Munnar you met Christ” (57). Pi was very surprised to find that he was welcomed into Christianity almost immediately. Throughout Pi’s childhood, he bounced around from religion to religion trying to find a perfect match for himself. When Pi was put in a situation when he needed to survive, he had to change how he saw religion. In his