Ones safety is not always as it seems, for there is always the possibility of imminent danger. That is so for two similar events, one fictional, and one real: The Life of Pi and the 9/11 Attack. The two instances particularly refer to the false sense of security involved in the victims of these tragedies, and the fearsome actions of the aggressors. Al-Qaeda and the United States have been against each other for years, but Richard Parker and Pi were able to become something along the lines of friends; their outcomes were different due to the circumstances surrounding the situation.
Pi Patel is the main character of The Life of Pi, and would be comparable to the United States; their obliviousness to the danger lurking nearby was what connected
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Most would think one was crazy if one thought there was a bengal tiger lying dormant in a lifeboat. In fact, one would probably think oneself was crazy for the very same claim! Either way, the threat was real, and the two dangers, Richard Parker and al-Qaeda, are both incredibly deadly. When Pi and his brother were younger, their father had decided to show them the true dangers of the zoo they owned. The pure aggressiveness and predatory nature of many of the animals in the zoo absolutely shocked Pi, who lived a pacifist, vegetarian life. When a goat was released into the cage of a tiger, Pi was traumatized. “I don’t know if I saw blood before turning into Mother’s arms or if I daubed it on later, in my memory, with a big brush. But I heard. It was enough to scare the living vegetarian daylights out of me” (Martel, 2003, p. 45). Both Richard Parker and al-Qaeda displayed violent, killer tendencies. After all, tigers are incredibly deadly predators, and in the 9/11 attack alone, al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people. In the beginning, though, both dangers tended to veer away from their innocent counterparts. Al-Qaeda performed six terrorist attacks before directly attacking the United States by destroying New York’s Twin Towers. Total, this extremely dangerous organization has committed fifty-four terrorist attacks (Time, 2018). Only 226 people died in the six attacks prior to the terrorist attack of 9/11; that is 1/13 of the people who died. Obviously, what with the low-scale attacks prior to 9/11, they were trying to lay low and hide out until they truly pulled out the big guns and killed thousands of people. Richard Parker was in a similar situation, though he was forced into it. Partially due to his fear and seasickness, he tended to lay dormant in the bottom of the lifeboat, waiting to come out and reveal himself until it was