In the novel, Pi who is the protagonist is placed in a life or death situation, ultimately testing his faith and morality. It is exhibited in the novel that he developed a deep sense of kindness and morality towards all things through believing in three religions, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Nevertheless, as he suffers from hunger and death, he abandons his morality as an act of survival. Richard Parker demonstrates the Id as he is ultimately a symbol of Pi’s survival instincts and his capacity to do terrible acts in order to survive. Throughout the novel, Richard Parker will doing anything to satisfy his hunger which represents Pi, so he is not real, instead, he is Pi’s basic instincts which will not stop until its satisfied. Through the inhumane acts of the sailor and Pi, it is symbolically shown that when facing …show more content…
Similarly, the hyena is representative of the id as it viciously attacks the Zebra and acts without regard even though it is dying, performing bodily actions with no sense of shame. Pi loss his superego as he was able to eat meat without feeling guilty after three days in the lifeboat. Hence, Pi’s ego became an observer towards the inhumane acts and savagery acts yet continued his usual socially accepted actions like praying, drinking, fishing and drinking, all of which exclude violence towards the other animals. It is only at the end of the novel in which Pi’s superego essentially returns to him as he returns to vegetarianism. As Pi initially tells a story about animals, as the authorities compel him to tell a more realistic story, he tells one with humans whose actions closely replicate to the ones with the animals. A Freudian theory would highlight that the animals is used as a defence mechanism by Pi to survive being lost as sea as well as preserve his sense of