A Life of Pi; Respecting our Animal Friends

I watched a Life of Pi the other day and was reminded of a lesson once taught to me by the director of Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, a lesson about the way we view animals, and if that view is respectful to them or not. Spoilers below.

A Life of Pi is all about a young boy named Pi who has to fight for his survival when the ship transporting his family and their assortment of animals is sunk in a terrible storm, leaving him stranded in a life boat with the only other survivor; his father’s Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker. It’s a clever set-up, but works on a deeper emotional level due to Pi’s close personal connection with Parker.

Pi views Parker as a friend, and almost loses his arm in the process when he feeds him by hand. His father, a strict science type, reminds him in a cruel lesson that Parker is wild and incapable of friendship. I felt the father was wrong, and wondered if the film would show animals can be our friends in a Disney like way. As the film went on, I realised both father and son were right. Both points of view combine in a valuable lesson.

Parker tries to eat Pi, Pi is rightly petrified and spends half the film outside the boat, and realises he must tame the beast if he is to survive. He succeeds, Parker stops trying to eat Pi, and I think accepts he needs Pi to survive, coming back to the boat when stranded on a floating island, as if waiting for Pi to sail them to land.

Pi’s weakness returns when he exposes Parker to a violent storm to share with him its beauty, leaving the tiger petrified and almost lost to the ocean. It’s when Parker leaves him on reaching land that Pi realises his father was right. The tiger walks off without turning back to say goodbye and he knows he was never his friend.

In a way this is half true. Animals are just that. Animals. We're animals too, but in the end, have fundamental differences. We can’t say hello to a wild tiger and play games with it, sometimes not even with a captive tiger. There are of course pictures we've all seen with owners giving their wild animals cuddles, and it’s fantastic and wonderful, but isn’t always the case, and shouldn’t be all we strive for.

In the final moments, an older Pi explains to a writer listening to his story, that although Parker never looked back, he was sure deep down they had a personal connection. It cannot be proved on a physical level, but it was there. This is where father and son combine in points of view. Pi realises he had a close bond with Parker even though the tiger couldn’t show it in a physical, human way.

The sanctuary's director, Leyton, told me if we demand an animal to be our friend, if we want them to like us so badly that we put ourselves into dangerous situations to be close to them, we put the animal second to our selfish need. This is what Pi does when he feeds Parker by hand. Not only is this disrespectful to the animal by not appreciating it as a wild creature, it is driven out of a selfish desire. Pi learns he can have a close connection with an animal without physically needing anything in return. Certain wolves at Wild Spirit may not lick your hand or want cuddles, but this doesn’t mean we can’t love them, care for them, and possibly feel something on a spiritual level.

The word respect means understanding the nature and power of animals, and being able to care for them without asking for anything back. I believe we can be very close to our animal friends, and if we can do this for them, will get back something that can’t be put into words or reason: a spiritual, loving bond, and a mutual respect for our kind.