echo Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers of the film Life of Pi
Introduction
We all love a good classic. One particularly beloved tale is The Jungle Book. It tells the story of a young boy, Mowgli, and his adventures in the wild. Whether you’ve read Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 original or the 1967 Disney animated adaptation, the premise is familiar: A young boy raised by animals in the jungle, torn between his wild friendships and his identity, as well as the looming danger of Shere Khan, the tiger who despises mankind.
While the movie concludes with Shere Khan vanquished and Mowgli finding a home in a man-village, what if there was a more twisted version of this story? What if Mowgli lost everything—his friends, his safety—and was forced to survive in the jungle alone, relentlessly pursued by Shere Khan, and clinging to hope for rescue until the very end?
This reimagined version mirrors another story of survival: Life of Pi.
At its core, Life of Pi is about a boy adrift at sea, trapped not in a forest but in the Pacific Ocean, and sharing his lifeboat not with Baloo the bear or Bagheera the panther, but with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
While the story is often discussed through religious and philosophical lenses, there is one theme that cuts through the storm — hope. It’s what keeps Pi alive, not just in faith and deity, but in survival, in the possibility of making it through, and most importantly, in himself.
This article does not aim to unpack the religious symbolism that surrounds Pi’s character. Instead, I want to turn the spotlight on Pi’s emotional lifeline that helps him survive the 227 days at sea.
A Brief Recap of the Movie
Based on the 2001 novel by Yann Martel, Life of Pi revolves around Pi Patel, a 16-year-old Indian boy, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Pi’s family owns a zoo, where he becomes fascinated by the family’s Bengal tiger. One day, Pi’s father announces that they will be moving to Canada to sell the animals for high value. They board a Japanese cargo ship with the zoo animals, but a ferocious storm causes a shipwreck, where Pi is thrown onto a lifeboat, the freed animals scrambling for their own survival, and Pi’s family succumbing to the depths of the Mariana Trench.
All the animals, including a zebra, hyena, and orangutan, perish except for Richard Parker, who drives Pi from the lifeboat onto a makeshift raft. Due to his moral code against killing, Pi decides that he will help sustain the beast, and the two spend the next 227 days learning how to coexist. They endure storms, whales, and even a carnivorous island. Eventually, they reach Mexico where Pi recovers at a hospital, while Richard Parker barely acknowledges him as it departs into a jungle.
After Pi retells his story to the insurance agents for the Japanese ship, they do not believe him. So, he retells his story but replaces the animals with humans, such as his mother as the orangutan, a brutish cook as the hyena, and even himself as Richard Parker. This version, while brutal, is more realistic.
What’s fascinating is that the entire recap above is actually told in a flashback by Pi Patel when a Canadian writer visits him upon recommendation that Pi’s story would be a good subject for a book. At the end of the movie, Pi asks whether the writer prefers the animal story or the human story.
Pi’s Will to Live
Pi witnesses everything familiar to his life taken from him in a single night by the shipwreck. Despite being left in grief and fear, Pi slowly finds hope in small, deliberate ways. Pi sets routines, rations his food, and keeps a journal. By building a survival system, it provided him with a psychological armour that kept him grounded.
In a situation where most would have given up, Pi chooses to go the distance, laying a foundation of hope as if rescue is possible, as if his life is worth preserving.
Imagination as a Lifeline
As mentioned before, Pi’s final statement gives us the choice of which version of his story we would rather believe—one fantastical and the other brutal and realistic. Many interpretations argue which one is ‘true’, but for the purpose of understanding hope, the fantastical one is more essential.
In the midst of despair, Pi creates a narrative where he is not entirely alone. His imagination isn’t denial, but a form of creative hope—a way to keep his mind sharp and intact amid suffering. Hope doesn’t always wear the face of reality, instead it’s the story we tell ourselves so that we can keep rowing forward.
The Tiger Within
Richard Parker is more than a beast. He became Pi’s fiercest challenge and greatest companion. Richard Parker acted as a grounding force that made Pi stay alert and purposeful. Pi even admits that he wouldn’t have survived without Richard Parker—not because the tiger protected him, but because it gave him a reason to protect himself.
The coexistence between Pi and Richard Parker on a small lifeboat, surrounded by a vast hue of blue, symbolises how hope often arrives in strange forms. While the tiger initially instilled additional fear within Pi on top of his precarious situation, the discipline, strategies, and small victories that result from his interaction with Richard Parker keeps his hope active.
The Bittersweet End
Pi is rescued when he reaches the shores of Mexico. Richard Parker doesn’t give his companion even a backwards glance before disappearing into the jungle, and Pi is heartbroken not just for the loss of his companion, but for the journey’s end.
Hope doesn’t undo suffering, but it gets us through it. While survival isn’t without its scars, it is also a triumph of human spirit. The insurance agents who questioned Pi about his journey prefer the human story as it is more believable for them, but they are also offered the more meaningful one. Pi leaves it up to us to decide which story sounds better. But his choice to tell the ‘better’ one suggests hope is a lens through which we choose to see the world.
Conclusion
In Life of Pi, hope isn’t loud. It’s quiet—a whisper. It’s found in Pi’s routine, his storytelling, as well as his ability to find beauty within the terror of the sea and a pal within the viciousness of a beast. This movie shows hope not as blind optimism, but as active endurance that can carry us farther than we ever imagined.
In times of isolation, fear, or grief, Pi’s story reminds us that hope can be the raft that helps us trudge through the uncertain sea of life.
Written by: Isabelle
Edited by: Zhen Li
