Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Every Road Leads Somewhere

List a few examples of literary devices Yann Martel uses and explain how they contribute to the story's meaning.

6 comments:

Katie said...

"As for the sea, it looked rough, but to a landlubber the sea is always impressive and forbidding, beautiful and dangerous." To me (and hopefully to you) this is a paradox. Impressiveness and beauty tends to say "come closer" while forbidding and dangerous shout "stay back."

"In that case, what is the purpose of reason, Richard parker? Is it no more than to shine at practicalities- the getting of food, clothing, and shelter? Why can't reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there's so little fish to catch?" The last question is a metaphor used to simplify and make easier to understand his ponderings.

The two examples listed above help the reader to connect to Pi's thoughts and experience. Literary devises are there to make reading easier and more understandable.

julietoa said...

"The feeling, a paradoxical mix of pulsing energy and profound pece, was intense and blissful."
I feel like that sometimes when i run. I'm getting endorphines while the steady pounding and stillness around me is extremely peaceful. In PI's case he was meditating.

"Whereas before the road, the sea, the trees, the air, the sun all spoke differently to me, now they spoke one language of unity." This is personification since obviously the trees or air or sun can't speak.

julietoa said...

"Isn't it ironic, Richard Parker? We're in hell yet still we're afraid of immortality."
Pi's in the life boat watching as the ship is sinking. He spots Richard Parker and is talking to him through his crazed state of shock. Both the tiger and Pi are doing everything they can to stay alive even though surviving puts them in the midst of the hell around them. This is irony. This part of the story addresses the question of how we are to live with uncertainties. Do we keep living even though we don't understand why things like this happen? Or do we die along with our pain? Dying would be the logical choice but i guess faith puts a survival instinct in us. I actually have no idea why people fight so hard to keep living. Is it because we're afraid to die and enter the unknown? Has this instinct always been with us since the cavemen days? Maybe Pi was able to survive out of all of them because his faith was so huge and limitless.

julietoa said...

"To loose your mother, well, that is like loosing the sun above you."
This is a simile.
That's part of the human condition; To loose a person you love is traumatizing. It's normally that way with animals also.


I found a motif! Orange. In this story orange = survival. The inside of the rescue boat is orange as are the life jackets, lifebuoy, and oars. Everything orange orange orange

julietoa said...

I know this isn't a lit device but it's a vocab word.
"Blah..Blah...Blah...much to father's chagrin." And i even know what it means. I keep finding lots of errors in this book. "Father" was capitilised but Pi was talking about his own father and not God. It's bothering me

Katie said...

You posted so much. I have a couple comments on your comments.

1) The whole fighting for survival when you have no idea what is next...I think that's coded in us. Survival isn't a question of do you want to live or die. It's more of must live, cannot die kind of situation. Would you ever think, "oh, I've tries long enough. Time to give up?" NO! You would keep fighting. We can't help it.

2)Fabulous. Your are so freakin' smart. I NEVER would have thought orange was a motif. Not only do you see orange (survival) in the lifeboat gear, you also see it in Richard Parker himself. Pi mentions that in order to survive, both he and Richard Parker would have to live. Not just one or the other. Both to survive. (And the tiger's orange!!!) Wow. Ms. William's haunts our lives EVERYDAY!!!!