LIFE OF PI
ABOUT US
In our radio play, each person in our team took on a different role from the story. Each animal character described during Pi's time at sea is in fact just a portrayal of the human characters described near the end of the book. The hyena was the cook, the orang-utan was Pi's mother, the zebra was the sailor and the tiger was Pi himself.
SOPHIE
The cook is believed to be the hyena because of his brutality and mercilessness. The term hyena comes from the Greek word hys meaning swine.
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Hyenas are a symbol of greed and wisdom. The chef can be described as being a very clever individual. He managed to deceive both Pi and his mother, tricking them into thinking he was amputating the sailor’s foot for the benefit of his health. But the chef had ulterior motives; he planned on using the meat as bait for other animals. This is man’s selfishness and greed at its purest.
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The problem is, there is an extent of foolishness to balance a hyena’s ingenuity. Both the hyena and the cook killed without hesitation because they were being attacked. In addition, both the chef and the hyena lose their willingness to live when faced in a life and death situation. Almost as if their will to live had diminished, they simply accepted the death that would soon overcome them.
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In the end, the chef and the hyena’s sharpness and momentary intelligence amounted to nothing but a gruesome death. ​
SOFIA
The mother is believed to be the orang-utan as she is fearless and strong. The name orangutan comes from two Indonesian words which mean person of the forest when combined.
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Orang-utans are primates and some people believe that humans evolved from primates. This could be viewed as the same kind of relationship between Pi and his mother as he was borne from her.
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Also, one can draw a parallel between the actions of Pi's mother and the actions of the orang-utan. Firstly, both the orang-utan and Pi's mother are killed in a confrontation between the cook or the hyena. Secondly, both the orang-utan and Pi's mother act towards the good health of the sailor. The orang-utan and Pi's Mother both take on a protective motherly demeanour.
SYANTH
​When comparing the two stories presented in Life of Pi, one is led to believe that the zebra is Pi's representation for the Taiwanese sailor.
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Both the zebra and the sailor had an injured leg and an attitude of helplessness. He is young and beautiful save for his broken foot.
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The zebra is viewed as the exotic and peaceful animal that is essentially defenceless. It always gets preyed on by the other animals. The zebra is only killed once it is rendered defenseless. And the hyena only finishes off the zebra's forthcoming death. The hyena never goes to kill if the prey is still alive because it only sees justification in its killing when its prey is injured.
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JERRY
Unlike the other characters, it is more difficult to draw the parallel between Pi and Richard Parker because Pi is present in both stories.
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But when comparing the brutish, animalistic actions of Pi to those of Richard Parker, one begins to understand that Richard Parker symbolizes Pi’s most animalistic instincts.
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Out on the lifeboat, Pi must perform many actions to stay alive that he would have found unimaginable in his normal life. An avowed vegetarian, he must kill fish and eat their flesh. As time progresses, he becomes more brutish about it, tearing apart birds and greedily stuffing them in his mouth, in the same way Richard Parker does. After Richard Parker mauls the blind Frenchman, Pi uses the man’s flesh for bait and even eats some of it, becoming cannibalistic in his unrelenting hunger.
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In his second story to the Japanese investigators, Pi is Richard Parker. He kills his mother’s murderer. Parker is the version of himself that Pi has invented to make his story more palatable, both to himself and to his audience. The brutality of his mother’s death and his own shocking act of revenge are too much for Pi to deal with, and he finds it easier to imagine a tiger as the killer, rather than himself in that role.