Tigers and Fish

When you read your poem in class I wanted to respond; you always respond to us,to our thoughts, feelings and comments. The reasons I didn't was first because it takes me reading a poem two or three times to really digest it, second it was on a very sensitive subject; but I think we all should of known the first day of class that you have no problem delving into sensitive subjects. I was really moved by your poem, in multiple ways. It freaked me out at first, just like it freaked me out that Pi's dad showed him the tiger and his killing habits. I think you were right when you said your mom and Pi's mom probably wouldn't have let it happen. I think it was a good poem to go along with The Life of Pi because it does show us that our experiences and people in our lives prepare us for future events. Things that will help us carry on through a rough sea. You could not have started your poem with killing the fish until you set an emotional setting. We needed to feel the sudden surprise of the fish's arrival, the anxiety of knowing it couldn't breath and the knowledge that that you wanted to help it. The same with Martel he could not have started the story with the ship sinking...well he could have, but it would not have had the same emotional setting. This helps us know what is at stake for Pi. It helps us care for him, and the emotional roller coaster he is going through. Martel writes on p.93" This story has a happy ending" Does it? Because Pi has a home and kids and he survived, or does he carry a load of turmoil with him? Does he lose certain things that he was sure of before he was shipwrecked? Did his dad prepare him for what the animals truly were, or did his dad taint his view of the tiger?
I think one of the things that Martel help us with in the first half of the book was prepare us on how attached Pi would be to the things that happened to him in the second half, like on p.6 he writes. " Richard Parker has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart." We all tell stories a certain way, but most of the time we add a beginning before the pivotal moment because it adds to the heart of the story.