Feminism in "Life of Pi"

After reading the third part of the book, Life of Pi, I have noticed that feminism theory helps show the importance of the characters in the story. Pi respects his mother and Orange Juice, the orangutan in the story because every time he refers to them he describes them in a respectful way. In the story when Pi saw Orange Juice he felt relieved and felt happy to see her despite all the problems had stranded in the middle of the ocean. Like this at the end of the story when Pi retells the story of the days he was stranded on the ocean but replaces the character of Orange Juice with his mother again making her mother look like the only comfort he had.

As Pi was from an Indian culture, his mother follows the typical role in the family, who plays a housewife and has no say in what decisions are being made in the family business or any family issues. During the end, Pi says “My mother was fighting an adult man. He was mean and muscular” (Martel 172) and in the case of the animals in the lifeboat, Orange Juice was killed by the hyena in which the hyena is the cook and Orange Juice was the mother. These show that both Orange Juice and Pi’s mother have calm and gentle characters and both are mothers who would do anything to save their child.

In the story, Pi’s mom plays the role of a housewife and does all the cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children while the father does the work meant only for “men” such as business work and making decisions for the family. Orange Juice plays the role of a mother who lives with her children and is a weaker creature compared to a male hyena. Also, in the story, there is Richard Parker, the tiger trapped on the lifeboat’s mother who was shot dead while trying to protect him from a hunter. All three of the mothers have similar characteristics that show bravery by trying to protect their children although all three of them died. When he changes the story with a cook, sailor and Pi's mother replacing the hyena, zebra, and orangutan, he compares the orangutan with Pi's mother showing that they have similar characteristics both being as women. 

In the text women’s lives are limited to everything that must be done at home, their lives do not pass their houses. In the text, they have not talked about any other female characters other than Orange Juice, Pi’s mother, and the tiger’s mother, which shows that there are only a few female characters that matter and make a difference to Pi’s life.

Women in the text do speak out for their opinions but therefore they end up getting killed. For example, "He killed her. The cook killed my mother. We were starving. I was weak. I couldn't hold on to a turtle. Because of me, we lost it. He hit me. Mother hit him. He hit her back. She turned to me and said, 'Go!' pushing me towards the raft” (Martel 172). This shows that the mother was trying to fight against the cook for hurting her child but as a result he kills her.

It is difficult for women at the period in India to have a say in the family decisions and when they tried they would always have to pay for what they had said.