Mistakes

   (Authors Note: This is my character analysis essay. I am doing it on Richard Parker from Life of Pi)

      If you're human, you've made a mistake in your life. It's simply a factual statement when someone says that nobody is perfect, because in reality that is the truest statement one can make. People mess up on a daily basis, on both small and large matters. For example you may have gotten a question wrong on an important test, or made a mistake during basketball tryouts, resulting in your placement on the second team.  In truth you'll probably be over it in a few weeks. Pi Patel's mistakes on the other hand can not be taken so lightly, in fact they alter his entire life forever.

    When poor Pi ends up on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific, he has but one companion and that is a 450 pound Bengal Tiger that goes by the name of Richard Parker. Unfortunately for Pi, Richard is a not just a 450 pound big cat, but a 450 pound man eating beast as well. Richard Parker's need for raw meat is sickening, yet it also proves to be helpful in the most unexpected of ways. Providing food for Richard Parker gives Pi something to work at, and eventually Pi becomes so wrapped up in feeding the two of them, that he almost forgets his situation and is able to form a strange attachment to his tiger friend. Think about it, if you provided for another living being for that long, wouldn't you become attached to it as well? The tiger becomes a way out for Pi, something to focus on other than the loss of his family and their future together in Canada. If it wasn't for Richard Parker, Pi just might not have made it off of that boat alive.

     Towards the end of the novel we find out something that not only changes the entire course of the story, but Richard Parker as a character. When Pi is being questioned about his experience he tells two stories, one with animals as the characters, and one with people to replace the animals. These stories are eerily similar, because in both of them the animals and people match up to one another. The even creepier part is that Pi is the person that replaces Richard Parker, who kills multiple people and things throughout the course of the story. Does that necessarily mean that the entire story Pi has been telling is a work of fiction, and that in reality he is a murderer? Not exactly. But Pi is Hindu, who sees most animals as sacred, and is a devoted vegetarian. But that is exactly why Richard Parker isn't real. Pi could not face the vital mistakes he made against his morals and religion, so he decided to cover it up with an intricate lie.

    As an animal, Richard Parker was a creature who hungered for fresh meat. It was like an addiction, and it turned him wild. Alone on a lifeboat Pi figuratively became that tiger. His only companion was his need to kill and devour, at one point in the book after killing a turtle and ripping it's shell off he begins  to see the still alive turtle as a gourmet soup. This lust for murder kept him occupied as well. He quotes "feeding Richard Parker helped me to almost forget my situation." The entire time he is on the lifeboat, Pi's main focus was feeding his carnivorous side. Strangely enough though, as soon as he acquires land Pi loses all traces of the tiger, in fact he doesn't even think twice about it. As a character, Richard Parker was nothing more than a mere figment of Pi's imagination. A figment that Pi wanted to rid himself off immediately. 

     Unlike most mistakes, murder is one that cannot be undone. One that cannot be forgotten or forgiven. Especially in Pi's case, where it ways so heavily against his religion. This murder was in fact so gruesome, that not even the interviewers (who had several doubts about Pi's first story) could swallow it. They chose to believe the unrealistic animal story, over the legitimate one. Humans may not be the most flawless beings, one thing they can do though is suppress their mistakes.