Life of Pi 2

   After the ship sinks and Pi is left alone, he realizes that the crew members must have thrown him overboard so he'd get eaten and they could save themselves. This relates back to my earlier observation, how when terror strikes humans will do almost anything to save themselves. Even if that means doing something horrible to a fellow human being. He decides that instead of behaving like frightened prey around the carnivorous creatures, it would be wisest to approach them with a superior and dominant attitude. When Orange Juice survives, her presence is somewhat of a maternal comfort to Pi, because she has bore children and orangutans are eerily human. I've personally spent half an hour bewildered by them at the Audobon Zoo in New Orleans, and their demeanor and close family connection is very touching. She represents hope and the will to live that both humans and animals alike share.
  I got kind of angry when Pi didn't go ahead and kill the zebra that was being eaten alive... I feel that the humanitarian thing to do would have been to break its neck or something. It didn't die until the day after the hyena began feasting on its living flesh, and that disgusted me. I realize Pi is very sensitive and emotional, but sometimes it's time to be a man. And then it kills Orange Juice. I didn't like this section because it was so graphic and disturbing. The orangutan represented the love that Pi lost, yet he didn't help her.
   As the novel furthers, Pi becomes more and more animalistic. He is killing things with his bare hands, he is naked, and he has even taken to drinking the life blood of animals. Once a loyal vegetarian, now a ravenous carnivore. The act of training Richard Parker is frightening. The concept of a small boy having so much dominance and control over the king of wild beasts is surreal. Pi notices that through persistent displays of superiority over the animal, he has begun to become an animal himself. Richard Parker is exhibiting signs of 'zoomorphism' at this point, however, because when the cannibalistic man comes onto the boat with the intention of killing and eating Pi, the tiger senses the threat to his master and refuses to allow any harm to come to him.
   When the pair washes up onto the Mexican beach and Richard Parker bounds away into the jungle, Pi is flooded with emotion. Happiness and relief at being saved, more sadness and grief that he has lost another friend.