Life of Pi Part 2, Chapter 78 Quotes
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote 1
Much becomes expendable. You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you're at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you're the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish. (2.78.9)
Pi gets pretty lofty and spiritual, but he always remains grounded. It's a like the Buddhist master telling his student to contemplate a sandal. Hours pass. Suddenly the master smacks the young charge across the face with the sandal. The master shouts: "Did you forget about the existence of the sandal?" Pi has similar revelations. Hunger, thirst, the realities of everyday existence actually contribute to his spiritual enlightenment.
Quote 2
The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. [...]. The sea is without a wrinkle. There is not a whisper in the wind. The hours last forever. You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma. [...]. In your boredom there are elements of terror: you break down into tears; you are filled with dread; you scream; you deliberately hurt yourself. And in the grip of terror – the worst storm – you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all. (2.78.7)
Pi ruminates on the life of the castaway. These psychological end points – boredom and terror – sound truly awful to hold in one mind. Even in his boredom Pi feels terror. In his terror, boredom. Perhaps Pi's boredom becomes terror: the way loneliness progresses to isolation and isolation to emptiness and emptiness to a sense of the world's nothingness. And that's pretty terrifying.
Quote 3
When rough weather abates, and it becomes clear that you have survived the sky's attack and the sea's treachery, your jubilation is tempered by the rage that so much fresh water should fall directly into the sea and by the worry that it is the last rain you will ever see, that you will die of thirst before the next drop falls. (2.78.6)
It's easy to forget how precious Pi's supplies of food and water are to him. At times he has stores and stores of rainwater and biscuits and turtles from the sea. At any moment, however, things can take a turn for the worse. It doesn't rain for weeks. He can't catch any fish. Then Pi sees, between half-empty bags of rainwater and biscuit packages, his own death staring back at him.
Quote 4
Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious. (2.78.8)
Pi thinks this little thought right after he discusses the twin emotions of boredom and terror (see Themes: Fear 2.78.7). Death becomes an escape when the ocean is calm; when catastrophe occurs, it's something Pi can flee. Why does Pi have such a complicated relationship with death? Is death – almost – the third resident on the lifeboat?
Quote 5
To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the center of a circle. [...]. When you look up, you sometimes wonder if [...] there isn't another one like you also looking up, also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, apathy. (2.78.5)
Pi describes the feeling, at sea, of being the absolute center. No matter where he is, the distance to the horizon remains the same. But the phrase "perpetually at the centre," for Pi, also suggests loneliness and spiritual abandonment. And such utter and extreme isolation, for Pi and anyone else, leads to madness.