Who is Richard Parker in Life of Pi?

Who is Richard Parker in Life of Pi?

Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure film by Ang Lee based on the novel by Yann Martel. It tells the story of Pi Patel, a sixteen-year-old South Indian boy who survives at Pacific Ocean with a tiger, named Richard Parker. Richard Parker lives on the lifeboat with Pi and is kept alive with the food and water Pi delivers. Richard Parker develops a relationship with Pi that allows them to coexist in their struggle. Two hundred and twenty-seven days after the ship's sinking, the lifeboat washes onto a beach in Mexico. Richard Parker disappears into the nearby jungle without a glance back.

The Two Stories of Pi Patel

The last part of the story describes a conversation between Pi and two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport who are conducting an inquiry into the shipwreck. They meet him at the hospital in Mexico where he is recovering. Pi tells them his tale, with the tiger, but the officials rejects it as unbelievable. Pi then offers them a second story in which he is adrift on a lifeboat not with zoo animals, but with the ship's cook, a sailor with a broken leg, and his own mother. The cook amputates the sailor's leg for use as fishing bait, and then kills the sailor and Pi's mother for food. Pi then kills the cook and dines on him.

It is implied that the hyena symbolizes the cook, the zebra the sailor, the orangutan Pi's mother, and the tiger Pi. Pi points out that neither story can be proven nor neither explains the cause of the shipwreck.

Who is Richard Parker?

Depending on which of Pi's stories you believe, Richard Parker is either a real tiger or simply an imagination of Pi’s mind. We know that it is difficult to consider a tiger co-existing with a boy in a small boat for more than 200 days. He might be considered as either the projection of Pi or a symbolic presentation.

Though Richard Parker is quite fearsome, ironically his presence helps Pi stay alive. Alone on the lifeboat, Pi has many issues to face in addition to the tiger onboard. Renewed, Pi is able to take concrete steps toward ensuring his continued existence: searching for food and keeping himself motivated. Caring and providing for Richard Parker keeps Pi busy and passes the time. Without Richard Parker to challenge and distract him, Pi might have given up on life. After he washes up on land in Mexico, he thanks the tiger for keeping him alive.

Richard Parker: Pi’s Fear

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, and shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.”
                                                                     Yann Martel Life of Pi

          Pi knew that fear is the only true opponent in life. In the middle of the ocean, among various other threats and needs, the real problem that Pi faced was the tiger. The portrayal of Richard Parker can be a symbolic presentation of the fear of the shipwrecked Pi. The main emotion that Pi felt throughout his adventures journey was fear, the fear the sea, the fear of survival…When he was at the zoo with Anandi, Pi says Richard Parker is the most magnificent creature in their zoo. He had always amazed and feared the huge tiger. Thus when he faced his life’s true opponent, fear, it is natural that he compares that instinct or situation with the most fearful thing he ever saw, Richard Parker.

       

  Pi soon finds that if he doesn’t fight the fear, it will conquer him. So he decides to control his fear. You could see Pi trains the tiger to control him.

“Without Richard Parker, I wouldn’t be alive today to tell you my story.”

Through several training exercises, he dominates Parker. This success gives him confidence, making his other obstacles seem less insurmountable. Renewed, Pi is able to take concrete steps toward ensuring his continued existence: searching for food and keeping himself motivated. Without Richard Parker to challenge and distract him, Pi might have given up on life. ultimately he reaches the shores of Mexico. The fear of sea or survival no more haunts him, Richard Parker is no more present in his life. It slowly withdraws into the wild.

The same fear that could defeat him became his motivator. If Pi doesn’t develop an uncontrollable fear, he couldn’t be active and survive the 227 days. The fear of survival helps him to find the bravery that lied within him.  In life ‘fear’ can, sometimes act as a motive. The fear of the future outcome of a particular act or living style makes one to act responsibly. The same fear of survival, Richard Parker, helped him to act and survive in the middle of the ocean.

The Second Story

In the second story (the one without animals) Pi represents the tiger. Pi, a pure vegeterian, had to cath fish and eat it. To survive in the vast ocean he had to develop a more aggressive nature. He had to kill the murderer of his loving mother. For all these things, Pi, had to devolope some animalistic insticnts. Thus he imagine himself as the most fearsome animal he ever witnessed, Richard Parker. 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.

The real question is , which story do you, prefer? The answer or explanation depends on your preference of the two stories.