Hope In Life Of Pi And The Story Of Keesh

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If one loses another or something important to them, they might lose hope and drive into despair. The Protagonists of the short stories, “The Story of Keesh,” by Jack London and “The Life of Pi,” by Yann Martel, lost family members. In “The Story of Keesh,” the father of Keesh, Bok, lost his life going against a polar bear. In “The Life of Pi,” Pi lost his entire family due to a storm coming to the ship. However, both characters decided to bring hope back and never give up, overcoming any obstacles in their way to succeed in their goals. With their hope, both characters were able to survive all the way to the end. Both short stories, “ The Story of Keesh” and “The Life of Pi” convey the theme of survival, however, they have similarities and…show more content…
Pi’s family decided to leave India and move to Canada, however Pi is “left behind” in the Pacific Ocean due to a shipwreck that killed his family. He was with four animals, a hyena, zebra, orangutan, and a Bengal tiger all in the same lifeboat, he had to survive through all these days until he sought land. According to “The Life of Pi,” Pi said, “ The strained, temporary peace between Orange Juice and the hyena, and my reprieve, were no doubt due to the same reason: in the face of such a superior predator, all of us were prey, and normal ways of preying were affected. It seemed the presence of a tiger had saved me from a hyena..” (Martel, 83) The animals started fighting against each others due to the fact that everyone was prey and they were hungry. Pi noticed himself being in danger, the hyena was trying to eat him. Richard Parker suddenly came out and killed the hyena. He saved his life from the hyena, but was also there to take Pi’s life. However, it was also Richard Parker who kept Pi alive. In “The Life of Pi,” Pi said, “ I will tell you a secret: a part of me was glad about Richard Parker. A part of me did not want Richard Parker to die at all, because if he died I would be left alone with despair, a foe even more formidable than a tiger. He kept me from thinking too much about my family and my tragic circumstances. He pushed me to go on living. I…show more content…
Intelligence is just as important as food, without intelligence, hunting would be unsuccessful. As mentioned above, Keesh hunts because there wasn’t enough food distributed from the hunters, they took most of the meat and gave the ones filled with bones to everyone else. Therefore, Keesh begins his expedition to find huge polar bears and hunt them down. Based on the text, “The Story of Keesh,” the whole council went up to Keesh because they thought he used witchcraft and he explains his technique in killing the bear, “one takes a small chunk of blubber, thus, and thus makes it hollow. Then into the hollow goes the whalebone, so, tightly coiled, and another piece of blubber is fitted over the whale-bone...The bear swallows the little round ball, the blubber melts, the whalebone with its sharp ends stands out straight, the bear gets sick…” (London, 64). Keesh’s ingenuity was obviously the reason to how he kills the bear in such a simple way. He was more intelligent than anyone in the council, they had never thought of such way to hunt a bear with a whalebone. Keesh risk his life for food, the chance of being killed but, he plans before he goes to the bear, as soon as the bear gets sick, he will finish his job by killing the bear with
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