Truth+vs.+Perception

PLEASE DO NOT DELETE OTHERS' WORK. IF YOU DISAGREE, SIMPLY STATE YOUR OPINION/REASONS FOR DISAGREEING.


 * Make sure to add your annotations after quotes and images. What are you wondering, what are the connections, what are your questions? Add these and let me know...for more points. Thanks! Mrs. Davis

1st Period

This group will be watching for contrasts throughout the book: truth/perception vs. reality, the dual narratives, the interspersed description of the older Pi in places, the word choices that seem in conflict with the mood, etc.

"We all know that art is not truth, art is a lie that makes us realize the truth" - Pablo Picasso "Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't" - Mark Twain

Truth Vs. Perception in //Life of Pi//

Quotes: "That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? P. vi -This quote is from the authors note and portrays the tone of the entire book including the others note. "It's "happiness" is dashed. It yearns mightly for "freedom" and does all it can to escape. Being denied its "freedom" for too long, the animal becomes a shadow of itself, its spirit is broken. Some people imagine." P. 19 -He explains how people portray animals in zoos. He explains how they feel to contradict it and attempt to change how they see animal's lives who live in zoos. "A good zoo is a place of carefully worked out coincidence." p. 23 -This phrase is an oxymoron. He is attempting to explain how zoos are a great place contrary to popular belief and he uses the opposites to show the difference between the truth and how we perceive it. "I explore it now in the only place left for it, my memory.' p. 24 -He is arounsing the question of whether it exist because it is in his memory. He explores it but in truth he already knows all he can about the memory. "It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our own names." p. 25 -He believes it is true because his perception has changed which raises the question of whether it being true to him makes it a fact. "And so, in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the uniuverse, i found refuge." p. 30 "I quite deliberatly dressed wild animals in tame costumes of my imagination." p. 42 -He dresses wild animalss that are anything but tame in those costumes to show the irony of attempting to tame a wild animal. "Just wait till we're alone. You're the next goat!" p. 49 -When he calls him the next goat he is preying on his fear of being eaten by the tiger which changes how Pi thins about the tiger when he is on the boat with him. " The key aim is to diminish an animal's flight distance, which is the minimum distance at which an animal wants to keep a perceived enemy." p. 49 -Animals aren't positive about who and what their enemies are, they have to use common sense and a sense of reality to grasp whether opponent is an enemy or friend. " He had a knack for looking at an animal and guessing what was on its mind." p. 50 -This shows perception because Pi doesn't truly know what the animals are thinking but he feels very in tune with their habits, lifestyles and emotions. "Doesn't the telling of something always become a story?" p. 380. -Because one uses words to tell a story, a story is always a description of perception of the truth rather than the absolute truth. "Isn't just looking upon this world already something of an invention?" p. 380 -Because our minds interpret what our eyes see, truth is always in the eye of the beholder. "It was as unbelievable as the moon catching fire." p. 129 -Metaphor-obviously, the moon will never catch on fire, it is just a description of how it is perceived. "I thought I saw some animals too, but I dismissed the sight as illusion crafted by rain and shadow." p.129 -Another example of how what many see as truth, really is a matter of perspective. "The zebra should have been properly butchered." p. 137 -Pi is being rational when he realizes that Richard Parker should have killed the zebra right away to survive. "The calm sea opened up all around me like a great book, still it felt like night, suddenly it was day." p.149 -The perception of time is completely lost in Pi's situation. Therefore, time is only our creation. "I spent the night in a state of delirium. I kept thinking I had slept and was awaking after dreaming of a tiger." P.166 -Perspective can change readily with our state of conciousness therefore what we see as truth is not concrete. "How true it is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true." p. 175 -Pi is realistically stating "where there's a will, there's a way." "To be afraid of this ridiculous dog when there was a tiger about was like being afraid of splinters when trees are falling down." p.171 -Pi is coming to senses with reality, he understands that a hyena is less dangerous than a wild tiger.

​ 2nd period

- "It was a huge zoo, spread over numberless acres, big enough to require a train to explore it, though it seemed to get smaller as I grew older, train included." pg. 15
 * It was a place of imagination for him when he was little. As he grew older, his perception of the zoo changed. (2)

-"So pretty, aren't they? If the male feels he has to, he'll charge you and those short little antlers will pierce you like daggers...Life will defend itself no matter how small it is. Every animal is ferocious and dangerous." pg47
 * Slideshow--Animals seem harmless, but they aren't(2)

-pg 124 "Hold on tight I'll pull you in[...] Wait a second. Together? We'll be together? Have i gone mad"
 * He wanted someone familiar from his past life because he's lost everything, but he shouldn't want a tiger with him in the boat. (2)

-pg 115 " I was terribly excited. Things don't turn out the way they were supposed to..."
 * Change in mood went from happy to depressing (2)

-pg 11 " 'This is my gift to you.' 'And then he nearly drowned you'..."
 * A gift that might have killed him. Gifts aren't usually seen as something that will kill you. (2)

-"It worked marvellously. Peak and the herd of goats became inseparable, even when Summit arrived." pg. 33
 * One wouldn't expect rhinos and goats to get along, but they more than got along, they were inseperable. (2)

-"'it's pissing patel'...The teachers started doing it, too." pg25-26
 * you expect teachers to be mostly unbiased and to not call names. (2)

-"They could manage well enough the first syllable, //Pea//, but eventually the heat was too much and they lost control of their frothy-mouthed steeds and could no longer rein them in for the climb to the second syllable, the //seen//."pg26
 * Since the author has proved untrustworthy (trusting a teaser, pg10; tells us his life was shattered, pg3) so can we trust him enough to know that they teachers actually used the nickname, or is he just hearing them say that? Sometimes, we hear things that aren't there if we are listening for something else. He could be so used to the name that he just hears it. (2)
 * 121 and 189 "Jesus, Mary, Muhammad and Vishnu!"
 * Pi is saying all three because he doesn't want to be let down by one without two others to call on. it appears that one god is there for him, but he isn't sure, so he is being safe.(2)
 * 122 "And you, Ravi, dazzling hero of my childhood"
 * Ravi is a bully to him but there still is the hero worship that younger siblings feel for older (2)
 * 123 "in a few seconds you'll be aboard and we'll be together. Wait a second. Together? We'll be //together//? Have i gone mad"
 * Pi has lost his innocence and so in trying to get it back, he's ignoring reality. (2)
 * 206 "Prusten is the quiestest of tiger calls, a puff through the nose to express friendliness and hormless intentions."
 * It is impossible to be on friendly terms and harmless intentions with a tiger. If you forget to feed it breakfast, it will have you instead. Tigers do 'puff' through their nose, but it doesn't express kindness towards another human. (2)
 * 255 "With two blows of the hatchet, I cut its head right off. The flippers did not stop."
 * It resembles life, but it isn't really alive. It is only electric pulses that move the turtle now. (2)
 * 255 "It was rights I needed, the sort off rights that come with might."
 * We think of rights as unalienable, but they aren't really in the wild. Pi has to learn that, and learn how to get his own rights from Richard Parker.
 * pg 261 "Rarely will a tiger attack a fellow predator without warning."
 * We think of animals as viscious, when really humans are the animals who jump strait to violence. (2)
 * If the tiger represents Pi's grief, this means that his grief will just sit there until he decides to do something about it. (2)
 * pg 266 ""swung my gaze his way a few times in a showy manner, glaring at him wide-eyed...long enough to give him the willies."
 * We don't usually think of looking at someone as aggressive, but our society also treats stares as a bad thing...maybe this is why: because animals use them aggressively. (2)

Re-occuring ideas to watch for: -**Dichotomies. These are opposites he uses to describe one thing: friendly/ill-tempered; crushed-down/humble; ordinary/un-forgettable; bright, loud, wierd, delicate; bitterly/glad (2) > Ch2: He is a normal person, but look at what he did. Small man, but he stayed alive with a tiger. We see his straightforwardness when he is a child. (2) > Ch6: His cupboards are full; this could represent his mind, or it could be a lingering reaction to the ordeal(stuck at sea hungry). He seems normal, but in reality, there are some lasting effects. (2)
 * Snapshots of older Pi:

(1) Look beyond the obvious and you will find truth that you wouldn't have otherwise percieved.

(1) The number pi is an irrational number that tries to make sense of a rational object. This relates to Pi as humans are irrational and yet we attempt to make sense of the world around us. (1) Although the sloth's slow pace may make it seem like an easy prey, it is a misperception because it's slow lazy nature is exactly what keeps it alive. (1) This picture symbolizes the representation of the influence of the religious figures in Pi's life. His beliefs originated from each of their religous beliefs and evolved to fit him personally. (1) Throughout Pi's journey he has faced many obstacles in which he had to use his sense of reality to decide which path to take. Although situations often times lead to more than one path, it is our job to decide which one we take.

(1) This image is completely contradictory just like Pi and his strict vegetarian diet. Once Pi needed to survive his vegetarianism was rejected for survival. Need and necessity take priority over idiology. (1) Standing on the beach, the ocean seems like a beautiful and peaceful place, but in reality the ocean is a dangerous, mysterous place. When you are in middle of the ocean, your perception of the matter changes. This is like unto a tiger in the zoo. (1) (1) Pi does not respect agnostics because they refuse to leap past the truth and create their own perceptions of life.

A paradigm is a perspective that is based on experience. If you see a young woman, maybe you are in love with young person. If you see an older woman, maybe you love your grandma. Either way, it is passes experiences taht lead you to see one or the other. (the young woman is looking backward, with a necklace around her neck. The older woman is looking froward and down. The young girl's chin is the old woman's nose, and the old woman's chin is the young woman's neck.)

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Videos: media type="custom" key="4463595" Did you see it? Perception is a funny thing. If we focus on one thing in life, we see only that thing, and do not see outside influences that may influence us another way. With religion, Pi saw only his love of God and felt only his feelings when he prayed or read the Bible or heard the stories of the Hindu gods, and he didn't see the priests' perspectives and therefore couldn't understand why they wanted him to pick one religion. Likewise, they saw only their religion and how it functions, and couldn't see religion as Pi did--as a love of God. (2)

media type="youtube" key="PWW8pmrPd5k" height="344" width="425" Who would've thought that such a little thing like paradigms affect life? What are some of basic paradigms in life? What about in __Life of Pi__? His father believes that animals are dangerous. He shows Pi a tiger, that had been starved, eating a goat so Pi believes that animals will attack at any chance. We've seen animals in cages who are docile so much that we automatically assume that cages give us control whether positive or negative. This is the same with Pi. His dad was trying to show Pi that cages do not mean the animal is docile. The cages are the paradigm, giving a sense of security that isn't there. When people go to zoos they believe that the zookeepers are containing the animals, keeping them out of our society instead of giving them a place to live within human contact but not necessarily within the effects of human behavior. When people go to the circus they think that the ring leaders have trained the animals to do that (using harmful methods, like the whip). Pi says that its all in the dominating of the animals. (2)

media type="youtube" key="Pwghabw4N80" height="344" width="425" Pi's nicknames are like this answering machine--the teachers changed the attitudes of the parents, Pi changed his nickname because he was tired of the comments he would get about it. Is Pi's nickname really Pi, or is Piscine him? Does his changing his name change who he is? (2)

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