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Struggle For Dominance In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

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Struggles for Dominance in Life of Pi

The struggle for dominance is often used in fiction. In Life of Pi, Pi had a struggle for dominance with Richard Parker. Pi had to fight with Richard Parker to gain control of the lifeboat. If Pi did not become dominant over Richard Parker, he would have been killed. Yann Martel uses this struggle to show that both Pi and Richard Parker had to rely on each other to survive.
If Pi did not become dominant over Richard Parker, he probably would have been killed. Pi realizes that he needs to train Richard Parker so that he can have control of the lifeboat. “I needed safe access to the locker and the top of the tarpaulin, no matter the time of day or the weather, no matter his mood.” In order to become dominant over Richard Parker, Pi associated the sound of a whistle to seasickness. Therefore whenever …show more content…

Once Richard Parker was on the boat, Pi realized what he just did. However, Pi did not know that this action actually saved his life and he would not have survived out in the ocean alone without Richard Parker. Richard Parker caused Pi to think of the present, and not dwell on the past and all that he had lost. Having Richard Parker on the boat forced Pi to think of how he could outlast the tiger. Pi came up with multiple ways on how he was going to get rid of Richard Parker. “I started thinking seriously about how I was going to deal with Richard Parker.” None of his ideas were good and he gave up on himself and said he was going to die. Then, Pi realized that he should keep Richard Parker alive and try to force his dominance over the tiger. “It was time to impose myself and carve out my territory.”The author uses the territorial struggle between Pi and Richard Parker to show that Pi is as strong as the tiger is mentally, and when Pi establishes mental dominance, he is able to use Richard Parker to his advantage to help him

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