Animals and Humans
One major theme in Life of Pi is the relationship between animals and humans. One of the questions in this theme is: should animals be in zoo's or not? Pi thinks that they should be in zoo's, because they feel safe there. He thinks that animals just need to pick a space to call their territory, have a supply of food, and they will be perfectly content and not want to leave. The threat of predators is also nonexistant in a zoo. I agree with Pi on this sense, because I think that if we can be protected and housed and given food, animals should be able to as well. There is the flip side of the coin though, where people can say that animals belong in the wild. They were born in the wild, and they need the wild to retain certain things that make them animals. That they belong there, and we shouldn't force them to leave their homes.
The relationship between animals and humans is a continued theme throughout the book, such as when Pi switches the animals in the lifeboat for humans. That shows that humans and animals have similar traits, if Pi was able to find people that reminded him of a certain animal. If animals and humans have similar qualities, and animals should be in the wild, doesn't that mean that we should too? If they are expected to live in caves and hunt to get their own food, shouldn't we? Why should we get to live convenient lives with everything we need layed out before us, while animals should be outside and in danger of losing their lives all the time to either the elements or other predatorial animals? This is my reflection on the theme of the relationship between animals and humans in The Life of Pi.
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