The e book "Life of Pi" shows the Freud's theory on the unconscious mind in one's personality. According to Freud's theory, your brain can be divided into two main parts, which is the mindful brain and the unconscious mind. Unconscious mind is the foremost, and most probably threatening is unseen from the surface. The conscious brain is actively alert to all that is certainly going on. But the unconscious mind affects one's personality and action without even noticing it. Quite simply, this underlying affect is exactly what each and everyone is unaware of. Pi experiences both conscious brain and unconscious mind. He was consciously planning carefully how he was going to survive in the ocean by planning how he was going to spend his food so that food doesn't go out of supply. His conscious mind paid huge contributions in assisting him to endure in the ocean. When Pi was young, his father brought him and Ravi to the zoo to witness the brutality of the pets or animals. He threw a goat into a specific cage with a tiger. Needlessly to say, the tiger eats the goat ferociously. Pi's father's reason for doing this was to make clear how dangerous family pets could be. Pi was unaware that gruesome event has evolved his personality to be more ferocious. In order to survive in the ocean, Pi wiped out fishes, sea turtles, a bird and meerakats to quench his thirst and stop him to have problems with hunger. " Hunger knows no good friend but its feeder " (Aristophanes 1) The quote means that whenever some may be in the status of food deprived, one would do anything to gratify the hunger. Pi unconsciously turned into someone else when he was food deprived. Pi was totally unaware of it because he relied on his success intuition to keep himself alive against all possibilities. This clearly demonstrates being hungry has drove Pi to act with techniques that he never considered doing in his years of life.
Another Freud theory will be the Iceberg theory. Iceberg theory expresses that the heart and soul of a person is shaped as an iceberg. The part of the mind which is obvious for any to see is the superego and the ego, both will be the rational elements of the mind. What lies beneath the surface is a much larger area that is kept away from the public view, in other words, another do it yourself that is stored concealed away. Although Pi is a person who has his religions best interest at heart, he is deeply principled, however, he has an animal within him who later presents itself throughout his ordeal at sea. And this animal would be Richard Parker. " It had been circumstances of tense, breathless weary. " (Martel 155) shows that Pi was being forlorn and bored to death on the raft. This is why Richard Parker is Pi because it was all the imaginations of Pi. Pi got his success instinct, Richard Parker inside of him. " I held on to one thought: Richard Parker. I hatched several plans to eliminate him so the lifeboat might be mine. " (Martel 210) The identification is the generating push of the unconscious. It was fear of fatality that drove Pi to come out with the six strategies to get rid of Richard Parker. His identification was so mind-boggling that it overcomes his superego because he would like to remain alive. This demonstrates a person's id dominates the superego when is struggling among the life and loss of life situation. Pi would not have the ability to survive if his superego was more powerful than his id.
Besides that, Pavlov had a theory about fitness. The theory shows that association to the unconditioned stimulus is made with the conditioned stimulus within the brain, but without relating to the conscious part of the mind. Pi shows this theory by by using a whistle to condition Richard Parker. " TREEEEEE ! TREEEEEE ! TREEEEEE! " (Martel 127) Moreover, Pi provides Richard Parker a talk about of his water and food in order to control his brain in thinking that he needs Pi to be able to survive. In such a way, Richard Parker has been conditioned to check out Pi's commands using a whistle, water and food. The sound of the whistle acted as if it was a whip and a couch employed by the ringmaster to tame the lion in a circus. Pi developed some training program to condition Richard Parker such as make him drink from a pail, offering him with food and have him to do tips by jumping by using a hoop to tell him that who is the alpha. It efficiently helped Pi to endure with Richard Parker. Pi also conditioned Richard Parker by playing his feces. "To show his feces openly, to flaunt the small of which, is a sign of public dominance. " (Martel 283) Richard Parker has been conditioned to rely on Pi to endure. Thus, the theory of Palvol is plainly shown in "Life of Pi. "
In addition, in the storyline "Life of Pi, " addititionally there is the theory of human drive suggested by Abraham Maslow. There's a hierarchy of Maslow with the Maslow's theory. The hierarchy of Maslow is depicted as a pyramid consisting of five levels in total. Firstly, the lowest level as well as the prominent level is the physiological needs. The others are growth needs namely safe practices, love, esteem and home actualization. Physiological needs such as air, water and food are essential to ensure human survival. When you are content with physiological needs, with equal interest, one sought for safety which is the next level of hierarchy of Maslow. Pi was determined to reside in by dread. Richard Parker was the one who inflicted dread on Pi to keep him surviving. " I have to say a phrase about fear. It is life's true only opposition. Only dread can beat life. " (Martel 214) Pi was determined to not give up his life so easily. Instead, he fought like a warrior so that he could make it through this painful tragedy. Pi also admitted that if Richard Parker had not been exist, he'd already quit on his life. " It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start out with was the very same who brought me peace, goal, I dare say even wholeless. " (Martel 216) This quotation has proven that Pi survived the loneliness in the company of Richard Parker.
In conclusion, the storyplot "Life of Pi" is the perfect materials to be analyze under psychoanalytic zoom lens as there are various parts of the storyline which details the primacy of Freud theory, Iceberg theory, Palvol theory and Maslow's human drive theory. Being stranded on the deserted island, the appetite, fear and pain will be the natural instincts you can have. These natural intuition are also the literal requirements to the key of survival. "It might not exactly be a technological fact, but it's mental real truth. " (Aldiss 1) this quote means that a person's personality and action may not be able to be proven clinically, but it can be proven psychologically.
