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Life of Pi Quotes About Water

Instructor: Catherine Smith
''Life of Pi'' includes water imagery in a number of different ways, from the name of the main character, to major
events in the story, to passing references. This lesson looks at some of the key quotes concerning water in the novel.
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Water in Life of Pi
It is not surprising that water would feature prominently in a book where the major conflict is a shipwreck. Pi's time
in the lifeboat is not the only way that water is significant in the book, however. We also have the significance of
water in Pi's full name, which is Piscine; his parents named him after a swimming pool, in spite of the fact that they
could not swim. Further, water becomes very important to Pi as he is lost at sea and needs water to survive.

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Pi's Special Relationship with Water

We learn about the importance of water in Pi's story almost as soon as the book begins. In a bit of foreshadowing
early in the novel, we learn that Pi has a better relationship with water than the rest of his family has:

'I was named after a swimming pool. Quite peculiar considering my parents never really took to water.'

Pi goes on to explain exactly how it came about that he was given the name 'Piscine,' but that is not what is
important about this quote. Its significance lies more in the fact that Pi is connected to water, and his parents are
not. This operates as foreshadowing in the sense that later in the book, Pi is the only member of his family who
survives the shipwreck; a feat that is no doubt connected to his comfort in water.

Swimming

Early in the book, we learn that Pi has taken swimming lessons; this is clearly money well spent, given the shipwreck
that is to come. As with most other plot points in Life of Pi, these are described with beautiful language:

'Swimming instruction, which in time became swimming practice, was gruelling, but there was the deep pleasure of
doing a stroke with increasing ease and speed, over and over, till hypnosis practically, the water turning from molten
lead to liquid light.'

This quote demonstrates how water can act in different ways depending upon context; here, water starts as 'molten
lead' but transforms into 'liquid light.' The construction of water as 'liquid something' is used more than once in the
novel, such as when it is used again when Pi finds himself lost at sea.
Drinking Water at Sea
Of all the obstacles that Pi faces while living in his lifeboat, struggling with thirst is perhaps the worst. Even more
than food, a person requires water to survive. There is some irony to being lost at sea, in the middle of lots of water,
but not having anything to drink. Eventually, Pi locates water in the lifeboat and manages to quench his thirst:

'To the gurgling beat of my greedy throat, pure, delicious, beautiful, crystalline water flowed into my system. Liquid
life, it was. I drained that golden cup to the very last drop, sucking at the hole to catch any remaining moisture.'

This beautifully written sentence captures the satisfaction that Pi experiences when he finally has a drink of water.
The way water is described in this quote stands in contrast to how we understand the ocean water that surrounds Pi
and his boat: while the ocean is a constant threat to Pi's life, his drinking water sustains his life. Pi sums up this
experience with water in the following quote: 'I tell you, to be drunk on alcohol is disgraceful, but to be drunk on water
is noble and ecstatic.'

Water as a Spiritual Metaphor

Pi is consistently quite interested in matters of spirituality, so much so that he practices three religions: Hinduism,
Islam, and Christianity. At one point he uses water as a metaphor for the soul:

'The individual soul touches upon the world soul like a well reaches for the water table. That which sustains the
universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression, is the same
thing.'

According to Pi, well water reaches for the water table, which is the level at which soil is saturated by water, in the
same way that a person's soul longs to touch the world soul. This metaphor works not only on its primary level,
where a smaller thing reaches for a larger, similar thing, but also in the sense that, once again, water is connected to
life. In this case, it is connected to spiritual life, which arguably is as important to Pi as literal life.

Lesson Summary
Water is one of the most important symbols in Life of Pi, and is present in all parts of the book. From Pi's name, to
his experiences with swimming, to his time at sea, water plays a key role both literally, in terms of the plot, and
figuratively, as a metaphor that Pi occasionally uses.

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