Life Of Pi Through My Vegan Eyes

Last night, I was confined to my bed with an ice pack after injuring my back on the tennis court. My husband, Jeff, suggested that I watch the movie Life Of Pi. He took my sons to see it about six months ago, and they all loved it! I don’t know what took me so long to see this mesmerizing film, but I’m glad I finally did.

As you probably know, Ang Lee’s Life Of Pi tells the story of an Indian teenager named Pi who becomes shipwrecked in a lifeboat with a ravenous Bengal tiger. The themes of this movie are quite deep, complex, and too overwhelming for me to analyze in detail. However, I was really struck by the themes of vegetarianism, and I would love to make a few comments in this regard. Feel free to give me your own interpretations in the “comments” section below or to elaborate on mine.

I couldn’t help but fall in love with Pi who is a curious, deep-thinking character with a strong sense of wonder and humanity. He is attracted to many religions and always seems to be searching for the meaning of life. Although his journey on the lifeboat appears to depict his struggles with and search for religion, it also shows his undying hope and human instincts for survival in its rawest forms.

While at sea, Pi is faced with the choices to take life and eat meat or die (cannibalism is a possibility here depending on your interpretation of the story). Obviously, these are choices he never would have had to make before the shipwreck. As a lifelong vegetarian, this moral dilemma is so overwhelming for him that he creates the illusion of the Bengal tiger to represent that part of him that absolutely needs to kill and eat meat for survival. In Pi’s mind, he co-exists on the lifeboat with the tiger as if they are not one in the same. This demonstrates his inner struggle of peaceful vegetarian vs. killer carnivore. Although he needed to create the tiger to survive, he also needed to tame the tiger to keep himself alive.

Although Pi made the choice to survive by killing animals for their meat, this choice did not come without a price. The extreme pain and outpouring of emotion Pi felt when he killed his first fish was quite moving, and demonstrated the deep-rooted moral values he carried with him even when he almost reached death’s door. After he bludgeons the fish with an axe, he wraps it in a blanket so he doesn’t have to see it, cries hysterically, and thanks God for appearing before him in the form of a fish to help him survive.

Although Pi hardens and gets used to killing fish, turtles and other animals for survival, he is forced to make more choices when his lifeboat, after getting caught in a storm, drifts to an island with thousands of animals (“meercats” or lemurs) for him to eat. There were also plants on the island and, interestingly, Pi’s first choice when he arrived there was to eat roots and plants. However, “the tiger” ate the animals.

While on the island, Pi gained back some of his strength. He probably could have stayed there, sustaining himself by fishing and eating the “meercats.” Significantly, he chose to leave the island after finding human teeth, realizing that this way of life would consume him too. I believe that the island in the movie represented sin, and Pi left the island because he felt that the sin of surviving off the flesh of others would ultimately come at a horrific price, possibly killing his soul.

When Pi is finally rescued on the coast of Mexico, he parts with the side of himself that was the “killer/carnivorous” tiger needed for survival and returns to his prior vegetarian life.

My Final Thoughts:

As previously stated, a thorough discussion of the complex, deep and numerous themes of this wonderful movie would probably be a bit too ambitious for me. However, as a vegetarian, I was able to appreciate the inner moral conflicts Pi faced when he had no choice but to kill and eat animals to survive. And it seemed to me (again, depending on your interpretation of the movie) that Pi didn’t distinguish between the value of taking a human life, or a non-human life (as exemplified by his killing of the fish) for survival.

If you are a vegetarian, I ask you to count the number of times you have been asked “would you eat animals if you were stranded on a deserted island with no other choices?” A ridiculous question, I know! Nevertheless, this is a common question posed to vegetarians all the time. Life Of Pi places a vegetarian in this very situation, and the story’s answer to this question could be interpreted as “I may eat humans, if necessary, to survive.”

Of great significance to me, was the scene in the movie where Pi thanks God for coming to him in the form of the fish to help him survive. As you may know, there are many cultures around the world which “thank the animals” for giving up their lives for human consumption. In these situations, the animals do not choose to give up their lives, and there are often other alternatives for food. Obviously, Pi needed to kill and eat the fish to survive, whereas the cultures who “thank the animals” could have chosen to eat plants to survive. Therefore, the “thanks” of these cultures are quite different from Pi’s “thanks” to God for the fish.

When removed from his life and death situation, Pi returns to being a vegetarian remaining loyal to his strong set of beliefs and ethics. As far as I’m concerned, this is a happy ending.

Although I would love to further dissect some of the movie’s other themes (such as religion vs. science), I think I may have already gone a bit too far for a blog entitled “Vegan American Princess.” I just felt compelled to do this mini-review after watching this spectacular film which I highly recommend. Tomorrow, I will go back to blogging about lip gloss and recipes.

I would love to hear your comments.

*Note: Cadry of Cadry’s Kitchen recently wrote an incredibly insightful post pertaining to those who “say a little prayer of thanks” to the animals they eat. Click here if you wish to read it.

Debby

xoxoxo