I read the book Life of Pi when I was in fifth grade, and quickly fell in love. The twist ending shocked, bewildered and fascinated me all at the same time. The story begins with Pi, a young Indian boy, trying to explain his adherence to several faiths. Our very first introduction to our protagonist shows him as a peaceful, loving, do-gooding kid. This image is very different from the ferocious tiger he becomes.
Sigmund Freud created his Personality Theory based around three central ideas: the id, ego, and superego. His “studies of the unconscious revealed that people's actions were often the result of 'animal' urges or instincts” (Gaarder). When we are active, and secure, in society, our actions and “animal instincts” are better repressed. However, in dire life and death situations, the animal within us makes an appearance. So, how did the sweet boy we are introduced to turn into Richard Parker? Perhaps the answer lies in Freud’s id, ego, and superego.
In Martel’s story, Richard Parker is the literal embodiment of the id. If you have read the book, you know Richard Parker was not an actual tiger, but a symbol of the person Pi was forced to become in order to survive. His id, unconsciously driven by his desire to survive, influenced his conscious actions that allowed him to survive. Freud believed irrational impulses can be an expression of basic drives or needs. When Pi first encounters the cook (the hyena), his superego is still present and controlling, he can only stand by and watch as his mother is murdered. However, in the second encounter, the cook isn't so fortunate. Pi’s id was ready. Richard Parker killed the hyena swiftly and terribly, and from then on our sweet little boy must deal with the belief that he has killed someone.
Pi was forced to come to terms with the loss of his father and his mother, He then witnessed the murder of a man and killed another man. All these deaths, the horrors he underwent and committed, “can be such a tremendous strain”, especially for the superego, and thus, it is repressed (Gaarder). However, “whatever is repressed in this way will try of its own accord to reenter consciousness”, and thus, the creation of Richard Parker (Gaarder).
Works Cited:
"SOPHIE'S WORLD A Novel About the History of Philosophy." Web. 17 Sept. 2015.
<http://192.184.80.244/philosophy-plain/resources/SophiesWorld.pdf>.
Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print.
First off, very clever caption! I love it. I have not read the Life of Pi, but honestly now I really want to. Even though I don't know many details about the book (or even the movie for that matter), I think Freud's philosophy about the id, ego, and superego can applied clearly to the protagonist of the book. I think it also would have been interesting if you incorporated more of Freud's dream psychoanalysis to the post, but I'm not sure if that could even be applied here if Richard Parker didn't have dreams. I liked your example of how Richard killing the hyena was a turn in the novel. The reader, nor the character himself, would ever look at Richard the same way again.
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