Common Themes in Life of Pi and American Born Chinese.
Jared Motley
Mr. Kerr
Honors English I
April 21, 2015
Life of Pi and and American Born Chinese were two very different books. However, there are a few common themes that exist between the two. The one that stuck out the most was sometimes one has to go through change to find out who they truly are.
In both books, you can clearly see where the main characters experience a major change in their lives. In Life of Pi this would obviously be the ship sinking and Pi getting stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger. In American Born Chinese there are a few and they are a little more complicated. The first starts when Jin moves to his new school from Chinatown in San Francisco. Another starts when the monkey king gets kicked out of the party in heaven.
Pi’s change is different from the changes in American Born Chinese. Mainly because Pi didn’t want it to happen and he was put through it completely against his will. Pi was literally thrown onto a small lifeboat with dangerous animals as the ship he was traveling to Canada on was sinking. At the start of Pi’s journey, he had for the most part no idea how he was going to survive on the ocean. The only experience he did have was with the animals since he had grown up around a zoo. Still, he was unsure how they would act outside of where they were used to living. He was able to get quite a lot of information from the survival manual on the lifeboat but he was able to teach himself a lot too. He was forced to think differently and do things that he had never done and didn’t want to do. I could really see what kind of person Pi is by the things he did and how he lived while stranded at sea. A good example of this was when he had to kill and eat fish for the first time in order to survive. It took Pi a good amount of time to bring himself to kill the fish and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. This just shows that even though he was fighting for his own life he still stopped to think and care about how he hurt others. Even with this mentality, it became easier and easier for Pi to kill as the book went on. He ended up very different from how he started. The fact that he still believed that God is real and could help him even after all he went through is amazing. Even as things continued to get worse, he still prayed and gave thanks for the small victories. Most people put in his situation would have abandoned God at the very beginning. at the end of his journey, Pi was overall stronger. He had made it through so much and his actions throughout tell exactly who Pi is.
The changes in American Born Chinese are a little different but they end up being very similar to the ones in Life of Pi. Instead of being forced into a change like Pi was, the characters brought it upon themselves. Jin Wang’s story started when he moved out of San Francisco to an area he was not used to. Right away, most of the students treated him like an outsider that didn’t belong. They were extremely racist in the beginning, starting when one student asked if Jin ate dogs and others assuming that he and another Asian in the class were related. Bullying like this went on for years and Jin started agreeing with them and wished that he could be fully American. He got his wish one night and was transformed into a white person. At first and for a while after the change, he was happy but when the monkey king found him, he made Jin realize that he was supposed to be Jin, not Danny.
Mr. Kerr
Honors English I
April 21, 2015
Life of Pi and and American Born Chinese were two very different books. However, there are a few common themes that exist between the two. The one that stuck out the most was sometimes one has to go through change to find out who they truly are.
In both books, you can clearly see where the main characters experience a major change in their lives. In Life of Pi this would obviously be the ship sinking and Pi getting stranded on a lifeboat with a tiger. In American Born Chinese there are a few and they are a little more complicated. The first starts when Jin moves to his new school from Chinatown in San Francisco. Another starts when the monkey king gets kicked out of the party in heaven.
Pi’s change is different from the changes in American Born Chinese. Mainly because Pi didn’t want it to happen and he was put through it completely against his will. Pi was literally thrown onto a small lifeboat with dangerous animals as the ship he was traveling to Canada on was sinking. At the start of Pi’s journey, he had for the most part no idea how he was going to survive on the ocean. The only experience he did have was with the animals since he had grown up around a zoo. Still, he was unsure how they would act outside of where they were used to living. He was able to get quite a lot of information from the survival manual on the lifeboat but he was able to teach himself a lot too. He was forced to think differently and do things that he had never done and didn’t want to do. I could really see what kind of person Pi is by the things he did and how he lived while stranded at sea. A good example of this was when he had to kill and eat fish for the first time in order to survive. It took Pi a good amount of time to bring himself to kill the fish and he couldn’t help but feel sorry for it. This just shows that even though he was fighting for his own life he still stopped to think and care about how he hurt others. Even with this mentality, it became easier and easier for Pi to kill as the book went on. He ended up very different from how he started. The fact that he still believed that God is real and could help him even after all he went through is amazing. Even as things continued to get worse, he still prayed and gave thanks for the small victories. Most people put in his situation would have abandoned God at the very beginning. at the end of his journey, Pi was overall stronger. He had made it through so much and his actions throughout tell exactly who Pi is.
The changes in American Born Chinese are a little different but they end up being very similar to the ones in Life of Pi. Instead of being forced into a change like Pi was, the characters brought it upon themselves. Jin Wang’s story started when he moved out of San Francisco to an area he was not used to. Right away, most of the students treated him like an outsider that didn’t belong. They were extremely racist in the beginning, starting when one student asked if Jin ate dogs and others assuming that he and another Asian in the class were related. Bullying like this went on for years and Jin started agreeing with them and wished that he could be fully American. He got his wish one night and was transformed into a white person. At first and for a while after the change, he was happy but when the monkey king found him, he made Jin realize that he was supposed to be Jin, not Danny.
Before all of this happened, the monkey king went through a similar situation that gave him the wisdom to help out Jin. This started when the monkey king was kicked out of the party on heaven. From this point on he was upset that monkeys had to be so different from humans and looked down upon. He then isolated himself and learned how to change his form so he could be whatever he wanted. He changed himself into a larger, more human like, monkey that he thought would be far superior to his normal self. This made him very arrogant and he walked right into trouble when he disrespected the wrong person. He got trapped under a mountain of rocks and could not get out since he wouldn’t let go of his new form. He eventually got out by changing back into his old self and finally believed that he was made to be how he was for a reason. He realized that he didn’t need to be better than everybody else and he could be happy just the way he is.
The way these characters responded to changes does a great job of showing who they truly are. Certain things can bring out things inside people that has never been seen before. Not only will someone reading the story will notice a change in the character’s behavior, the characters themselves probably notice differences too. For better or for worse, each of the main characters in Life of Pi and American Born Chinese went through something like this.