Richard Parker

Authors Note: I know you might be thinking this piece is really short, well it is, but I think it get’s the point across and explains it pretty good.

A lifeboat floats over a never ending blue abyss; it sees nothing but dark brackish water. The smell is unbearable. The four animals – an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena and a Bengal tiger – stain the boat with urine and soil it with their waste, but Pi resists the smell for now. He knows that the most threatening animal underneath the tarp is ironically the one thing keeping him alive. In Yann Martel’s novel, Life of Pi, the Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker and the stranded boy named Pi Patel are symbolically one.

Richard Parker embodies the natural instinct Pi is forced to use to survive. Pi was furious at the hyena when he killed the beloved Orangutan. It was at that point Richard Parker arose from his den and killed the hyena. It is not coincidence that when Pi was angry, Richard Parker went in for the kill. This example connects the two as one. When Richard Parker came up from the den he awoke the inner savage in Pi. Pi had to transform himself from a strict vegetarian to a cold hunter. Then he continued on his way killing fish, and consuming their flesh.

Pi tried to find out ways to eliminate Richard Parker, but then realized that he must keep him alive because if he were to kill him then it would be like you were killing a part of yourself. Richard Parker wasn’t a nuisance to Pi and he wasn’t a threat. Richard Parker was life.

Platypuses

As the semi-aquatic mammal known as a Platypus awkwardly propels itself through the water he searches for shrimp, larva, and worms. This duration of swimming, hunting and eating lasts as long as 10 hours. After this time period of the platypus crawls to its burrow and sleeps for 14 hours, then later when he wakes up and repeats its daily cycle.

The Platypus is a well known mammal because of its odd design and its special ability to lay eggs. This type of mammal would be classified as monotremes which are mammals who have the ability to lay eggs. In this classification there are a few other mammals with this same ability.

A Platypus is very interesting specie its features include a wide duck billed beak, webbed otter feet, a tail similar to a beaver’s and a poison barb attached to its two hind legs which only the male platypuses can use. When they are in trouble have to act quickly and hit the enemy with their poison barb. If a small mammal were to be injected with its venom, let’s say a dog, it would die of poisoning, but even though the platypus’ venom is lethal to small mammals, humans are affected, but is not enough to kill us. If you were to be injected, then the pain would last for a month.

When a platypus swims it closes its eyes. How do they know where they’re going you ask? Well, a platypus locates its prey and places around it using its electromagnetic senses. The key locator for the electromagnetism is in the skin of their beak. The beak scans the area around the platypus then sends a map of the location around it.

As we might all know that platypuses are very awkward species they walk funny, swims awkwardly and has a wide variety of strange body parts, but that’s why I chose to pick this animal. We can learn a lot of things about a platypus and we still haven’t found out everything about it. A platypus has many mysteries that still need to be unlocked, but with research there is a lot we can uncover.

My Theory

Author's Note: This might not be the largest piece I've wrote, but I think I've proved my point.

Using Yann's interview,  Yann is trying to tell us is that there is two parts to a person. Pi Patel is a strict vegetarian and as we might all know Richard Parker a Bengal tiger would be a vicious predator and would be the complete opposite of Pi. When Pi first got onto the boat he didn't know what to do he thought that a ship would come to rescue him and he would be reunited with his family, but sadly that didn't happen. Instead Pi had to set aside his vegetarian ways and turn into a hunter, a predator, he had to turn into Richard Parker.

 This is when the two parts of a person comes into play. As you heard in the last paragraph Pi had to turn into Richard Parker, so this is the first part. Richard Parker symbolizes our instincts and what we think we should do in the time of need, then Pi comes into play. This is our generation of people, we are thinking that someone is going to save us and someone will rescue us. It is where we want to be, but all of that was set aside when Pi turned to his instincts and saved himself from a horrible death.

WW2

Climax: He is off onto war

Rising Action:                     Falling action: Bill is injured

The training begins. 

Conflict: He is sent to war        Resolution: They won the battle and Bill is okay.

It was in the year 1942, in the beginning of US joining the world war. Bill was with his family of four, his wife Amy and his two sons Tom and Robert. He had just come back from work and had eaten dinner. Then his wife went off to get the mail and she came back with her face shocked in disbelief. Bill went over to comfort her and later he opened the letter. The world war needed people for the army and he was supposed to go and leave his family. His heart sank and he looked at his two sons. He did not want to go to war, but he had no choice. He had to go whether he liked it or not.

At the day of his drafting, he said his last goodbyes to his family. He kissed his wife and told his sons to look after each other. They both agreed and watched their father get in a car and go to war. As Bill got in the car he saw two other men with a grim look on their face. They were both fit like Bill, they looked like brothers, but Bill didn’t have the chance to ask. When they reached the base he had a weird feeling in his stomach, it was nervous and anxious at the same time. An old man led them to their beds and gave them their uniforms and once Bill changed, they had gotten right to work. The instructor had taught them how to army crawl and put them to work. He had to call him sir every time and if he didn’t, he would be on the ground doing twenty. After the hard work the instructor lead them to the guns. He showed them how to reload and stock the guns with ammunition. They had not gotten to the shooting part, but he felt like in the week they would get to that.

During the week they went through rigorous training and almost every time he awoke with sore muscles, but when another week passed his body got used to the workouts and he could see the improvements too. He also had gotten into handling guns and shooting them, but he wasn’t very fond of the sharp noise it made. After a month of training he was informed that he would be leaving and he would be going to England to support their troops there. This was what he’s been training for, he just hoped that it would come in handy.

During training he had no problem making friend. Many of the people who were getting sent to England he knew. He had a good conversation that lasted the whole plane ride, so it felt like a pretty short ride. When he landed at the British base he unloaded his stuff and got ready for war.

The General said that an Army was coming from the east side of the town, so Bill and the rest of the people got into their positions to fight. A sniper was positioned up at a bell tower and Bill was in a bunker waiting for our opponent to make its move. After 30 minutes of waiting the sniper spotted an army of one hundred men with three tanks, while Bill’s army only had 80 men.  They were about 4 clicks away and two men went out to lure them into their ambush. They took a mini car and lured the enemies into the trap. All of the men were stocked with grenades and semi-automatic guns, even though Bill had good equipment, he didn’t feel good with facing 100 men and 3 tanks, but he could not give up hope. Then he saw them. The Germans came into what they thought was a deserted city, but then when they stepped in, the army pulled the trigger. The front of the city exploded, the sight was sickening, but Bill stood his ground. The army trucked forward. With about a ten percent of their army down and 1 tank exploded, Bill’s army could beat them. Bill looked up and saw the sniper firing left and right getting the next guy then onto the next guy, but Bill had his own business to mind. As a wave of enemies came by he was forced to shoot. He hated the idea of killing, but he had to protect himself and his country.

Bill ran to a building to reload. After he was done Bill looked out the window and saw two tanks pointing right towards the building. Bill shouted “RUN!!!!” and pulled the man out of the building.

 As the building was shot down Bill was flung forward by the explosion. And he could not feel his legs. A light flashed before him and he heard “don’t worry I gotcha!” and then he passed out.

Bill awoke in a hospital next to some of his friends and he looked around and then he saw both of his legs. With a sigh of relief he asked for a doctor and asked if he could walk again. The doctor said that he could walk with some rehab, but it would take some time. Then Bill thought about his family and thought to himself. I’m alive.

I am Number Three

Author's Note: I continued this piece again and it's kind of short, but I hope you enjoy it.

After taking a second glance at the window I wondered how I could be standing on my two feet. After walking around I jumped up and down and it seemed to be like earth's gravity, but how? How could they do this? It didn't seem possible, but it was.

Out  then five other people came around the corner and bowed in front of the captain. Then they started to get into some martial arts stance. Then the captain said hit and they got back into a regular standing position. He announced me to the rest of the group and I shook all of their hands. All of their grips were firm and I could tell that they were older than me and stronger than me. After greeting them the captain or what they called him "master" told me to focus in on the target and told me to shoot it. After a few seconds of confusion I asked where my gun was. He laughed at me and said that I would shoot with my eyes'. After that I looked at the target as hard as I could and I just couldn't shoot it. The master just stared at me like he couldn't believe his eyes'.

I am Number Three

Author's Note: This is a continued to the other piece. I hope you like it.

After school I came back on the bus where I normally sit and waited until I got home. Then I sat down and ate a snack. After finishing my snack I sat down and watched some TV. It opened up to the news and there was a sighting of UFOs in our region and I thought that was kind of interesting, but there was no such things as aliens, so I wasn't concerned. After an hour there was nothing to watch, so I thought I would walk down to our neighborhood park to see if there was anything to do. I told my mom that I was going and walked down to the park where suprisingly nobody was there.

It was pretty abnormal to see the park abandoned, it was normally packed with kids, but I just continued walking to the swing, when suddenly a bright light came out of the sky and.... I awoke on a metalic table with my arms and legs chained to the sides. "Whaa? Where am I," I groaned

As soon as I spoke these creatures surrounded me and..... I awoke for the second time. I thought this was just a dream, but it seemed so real. I could hear these creatures talking in a huddle and I spoke out. "Where am I?"

This time they approached me slowly and when they stepped into the light, they looked like normal people. I was expecting a green big headed aliens this time, but it was like looking at futuristic people. They were wearing what looked like silver under-armor, but a full body suit of it. "Hello earthling," they said in a weird accent "we have hand selected you from earth, with your power and many others we will defeat the evil penguin of the planet X."

This talk had my mind spinning in circles wondering what they were talking about and why they chose me for this. I wasn't athletic, I didn't have a lot of hand eye coordination, and I didn't think I had superpowers. After laying there for a couple of minutes I finally realized that there wasn't any chains around my body and I stood up. I looked around and I looked through a window and I saw that I was looking into space. I threw up and my legs were wobbly. I knew this wasn't a dream.

I am Number Three

This was a fun piece I thought I would experiment writing in another person's voice. 

When the bus came up to my corner I slowly walked to the bus, every time I have to sit in the front so I don't get in to "trouble". The bus driver blames me for everything that happens in the bus. Even the stuff that happens in the back he thinks is my fault. If only I had a car. Oh well, I guess I'll have to stay out of his way.

When I got off the bus the bus driver gave me the look like he always does. Then I go to my first hour class, gym, I'm not the kind of guy for sports, but I'm really good with math and non-sport kind of events. I try to be good at sports, but I just can't do it, so I tried to succeed in school and I do. Sometimes I think it isn't enough to be good at school, but I know school is good for you, so I do the best I can.

Throughout school I aced every test and got all A's on my homework, sometimes that's the only thing that made me popular.

To Be Continued