Pi is not your conventional super -hero. However, Pi displayed a lot of heroism in the novel, Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel. Pi’s story of heroism is a road map to achieving a balance of a conscious; rational mind, with an unconscious; animal mind. He became more knowledgeable as he matured both physically and spiritually through his journey. Pi was separated from humanity, forced to adapt and survive with dangerous zoo animals on the Pacific Ocean and grew as a person so he could return to impart his wisdom to others.

Reaching all the way back to when Pi was born, he was always different, as he was born as the son of a zookeeper. His experiences and lessons learned here helped him cope with the obstacles on his journey. In the beginning of Pi’s story, he and his family had just left Pondicherry, a city in India, to migrate to Canada on a Japanese ship called the Tsimtsum. Everything Pi ever loved was on the ship with him, and then it sank. “I watched the ship as it disappeared with much burbling and belching.

I looked about for my family, for survivors, for another lifeboat, for anything to bring me hope. There was nothing.” (134) In an instant, Pi was separated from everything he held dear to him. He had left India, and hadn’t arrived at Canada yet, so he had no land to go back to. Pi endured immense pain as his last shreds of hope were drowned with the Tsimtsum. Only a hero would have had the resolve to go on living. Pi’s traumatic experienceled to the beginning of his journey.

Over the course of his journey, the hero was forced into tests of his strength. Pi was forced to go through many initiations like this one which tested his will to survive. “And the whole time, lap after lap, it went yip yip yip yip yip in a high-pitched way. I was seized by fear.” (143) During this event the hyena would have ended Pi’s existence. Pi was also tested by intense hunger and thirst, but he used solar stills to harvest natural water and learn how to catch fish. On tip of the basic presence of two deadly predators, the hyena and Richard Parker. In response to this threat, Pi built a raft for himself to stay away from the danger on the lifeboat. These challenges made Pi more resourceful and pushed him to his limit. Pi also strung turtle shells together as defense against Richard Parker.

In the second story, Pi was faced with hunger, and the cook was eating the flies on board. This posed as a temptation for Pi, but he did not give in. he would not sink to barbarism. Pi proved his worth in all these situations, and more. Pi went through a nightmare, but survived it. He passed the tests. His terrific display of fortitude makes Pi worthy of the title “hero”.

After a series of testing events, Pi underwent a transformation. Pi learned how to cope with a tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He observed the relationships between animals and humans. Pi managed to overcome the doubt and reestablished faith in Religion, and received supernatural help from God. In this way, Pi went through both inward: spiritual and outward: physical journeys, as shown in this example: “I will not die. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.” (186) In this story, Pi resorted to using his conscious; rational mind.

To survive in the second story, we can see form the following quote that our hero turned to savagery: the unconscious; animal mind, instead of reason. “He was such an evil man. Worse still, he met evil in me- selfishness, anger, ruthlessness. I must live with that.” (391) To meet his strong need for survival, Pi had become into the animal-like the being he despises most. This would not be considered heroic, but everyone wavers when faced with intense decisions in dangerous situations. Even the greatest have a weak spot. Fear was Pi’s kryptonite. In both stories, Pi realized that he must give up his vegetarianism and begin eating meat as a means of survival.

Following Pi’s huge change, he used his acquired knowledge and strong will to live to create six plans of action to overcome Richard Parker. Pi, like many other super-heroes was in possession of a special weapon, but it was a little different. Pi’s weapon was knowledge, rooted in his abnormal childhood at a zoo. Pi’s father, Santosh, had taught him all about human-animal relationships. As a result, Pi used his old wisdom in combination with his newly acquired rekindling of faith to develop a strong super-alpha relationship with Richard Parker. This ensured Pi’s survival, as he was the dominant being on the lifeboat. His conscious, rational mind played a big role in choosing the right plan of action. This was his revelation.

In the first story: the one with the animals, the hyena was murdered for killing the zebra. Pi used his rational mind to conclude that this display of savagery was wrong, even though it is normal for animals to kill each other to survive. More hurtful to Pi was the fact that the hyena killed Orange Juice, the matriarchal figure in the lifeboat for Pi. Richard Parker is symbolic for the savage and ferocious side of Pi’s character. Pi experienced atonement when he took revenge, as Richard Parker, on the hyena for felling Orange Juice and the zebra. The evil hyena received payment for its wrong-doing.

Pi experienced atonement in the second story when he took the cook’s life. He did this to revenge his mother, who died at the hands of the evil cook. The cook did this as an act of brutality. First he hit Pi, and then when his mother stood up for Pi, the cook killed her, possibly to display dominance over the lifeboat. The cook shows animalistic behavior. Of course it might have been immoral for Pi to play God and decide who lives and who dies, but that is what justice is. The entire justice system is based on humans punishing other humans for their wrongdoings. Through this act, Pi proves his heroism by carrying out justice on behalf of the people, and overcoming sinners.

In the end of Pi’s journey, he finally returns to civilization and humanity. He shares his discoveries and knowledge gained from his journey with Mr. Chiba and Mr. Okamoto. Pi portrays his idea that life, or reality is interpreted differently by different people. Pi shows this by telling them two versions of the same story. One story is more reasonable and intellectual, whereas the other is more heavily rooted in faith and imagination. Pi shows that imagination is sometimes more useful in life through the following quote.

“We’re just being reasonable.”

“So am I! I applied my reason at every moment. Reason is excellent for getting food, clothing and shelter. Reason is the very best tool kit. Nothing beats reason for keeping tigers away. But be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.” (375)

Pi taught the two reporters that life is a choice of stories. A leap of faith is better than “dry, yeastless factuality.”

Through these steps, Yann Martel portrays to the reader that pi is an Archetypal Hero. Pi was isolated from society, forced to learn to mature, become wiser, and strengthen his faith in God in order to make it through the obstacles on his path and portray his findings to others. Pi received spiritual help from God on his journey, and also had his own unique weapon. He became stronger and gained a better acceptance of weaknesses. Pi is a prime example of the ideal super-hero!