Characters striving to overcome the great odds
Life of Pi is a tale of a set of characters striving to overcome the great odds they encounter. The shipwreck survivors in the raft refuse to resign to their fate and they thus fight for their lives. Even the badly injured Zebra refuses to die and fights for its life. The painful labor at which the Zebra tries to stay alive is demonstrative of the sheer resilience and struggle to overcome daunting challenges. The hyena’s deceit and blind sailor’s cannibalism are some of the examples of the lengths that desperate creatures will go to, to survive. The author of the novel employs both human and animal characters in the context of seemingly insurmountable challenges to showcase what humans can learn from the determined, heroic, and incredible acts of survival. He also uses symbols such as color orange to symbolize optimism, resilience, and survival. For example, Usha, Pi’s daughter, possesses an orange cat. Richard Parker is also the big orange Tiger that saves Pi’s life. The survivors also had to contend with the shortage of food and drinking water. They have to look for a way to get fresh water and fish now that they are stranded in the middle of salty waters where marine life is hard to catch. At first, the vegetarian Pi is unwilling to take the life of the live fish, but as time goes one, he progressively becomes comfortable with fishing, thus showing his willingness to adapt to new life for the sake of survival.
The caged man’s story on the other hand demonstrates a man with apparently diminishing resilience. When he is put in the enclosure, the author says that he is at first bewildered. He is most considered about the errands he has to run as opposed to coming to terms with is new constrained reality. However, when the reality sinks in, he starts to protest profusely. The author says that his eyes and voice are filled with rage. The psychologist likens his behavior to that of annoyed teenagers. As time goes on, however, the intensity of the man’s protestation gradually diminishes before he falls silent. The psychologist concludes that the caged man must be at the stage where men acquiesce themselves to the whims of the conqueror. Later on, the man even starts to discuss with the psychologist the merits and kindness of his incarceration. As the man’s behavior continues to change, the psychologist seemingly doesn’t seem to have a shortage of theories to explain the stage of each behavioral change. However, the moment that the caged man becomes unresponsive, passive, and distant, the psychologist starts to introspectively scold himself for having not done enough to voice his objection about the man’s incarceration. But he consoles himself saying that the king would have ignored him anyway. Eventually, the psychologist has a dream where the caged man’s imprisonment sparks a popular rebellion which leads to the ouster of the king. When he awakes from the dream, the psychologist decides to actualize the dream of the revolution.
This actualization message is the gist of Bob Marley’s song titled, “Get Up, Stand Up”. In the song, Marley implores his listeners who are presumably the oppressed black people to stand up to tyranny and overthrow the oppressive Babylonian system. He urges his Rastafarian followers not to acquiesce to the oppression but on the contrary, be resilient and courageous enough to defend their rights and dignity as human beings. Facing the yoke of racist and colonial oppression around the world, Bob Marley felt that it was time for black people to emancipate themselves not only from physical but also mental slavery. This entailed the rejection of the white man’s orthodox religion. Marley thus urges the Negro race not to give up in their long fight against racism and colonial oppression. In this, he uses repetitive lyrics to stress the message that his listeners should not give up. He also makes “get up and stand up” phrase as his chorus to emphasize the absolute need for the oppressed people to stand up to the bully.