Life of Pi - Chapters 1 - 4

            When you are a child, you develop many relationships that influence who you are as an adult. Everything you learn as a child is the foundation of your choices that you make as an adult, it is what makes you, you. A person who has a strong and close relationship with their family will most likely be very open and loving as a grown-up. Rather a person who hasn’t really developed a close relationship with their family may not be as outgoing and open hearted as someone who has the connection with their parents. In Pi’s case the relationship he develops with his family and animals makes him the man he became. Pi grew up in a loving home with caring parents who taught him many things that he still believes as an adult. When Pi was young he developed a very strong relationship with religion. He not only studied just one religion but became fond of three, Muslim, Christian, and Islam. He also grew up having a strong connection with animals because he was always at the zoo that his father owned who taught him many things about the ways of animals. This is what influenced Pi to study religion and zoology when he was an adult at the University of Toronto. Pi’s relationships as a child sculpted who he was as an adult. This goes with anyone. The relationships you develop as a child whether it’s with your friends, family, sports, nature, or pets, these are what you have been brought up with and this is what makes you the person you become as you grow up. When it comes to my opinion on whether or not animals should be kept in a zoo rather than the wild, it completely changed after reading these chapters. Before reading this book I felt that it was cruel to capture animals and keep them in closed bars where they are not free to roam and are just used for people’s entertainment. Now my views on zoos are completely opposite. After Pi had argued that animals were better off in a zoo rather than the wild because the zoo offers protection and food, whereas, the wild is filled with predators and is short on food. I thought about it and it actually made sense. Animals in the zoo don’t have to go hunting and searching for their next meal and go walk the mile to find the nearest water source, they have it all their within reach. A zoo is more of a paradise for the animals seeing that they get anything and everything they prefer. In my perspective the zoo is like a five star hotel compared to the wild as a 2 star hotel- you don’t get the highest service and necessities as the five star hotels.