Life of Pi

1
Life of Pi

• An Introduction

2
A Quick Glimpse

• The authors note, preceeding chapter 1, explains
  that the author has traveled to India, restless
  and in need of inspiration for a story. At the
  coffeehouse in Pondicherry, an elderly man named
  Francis Adirubasamy strikes up a conversation
  with the author saying, I have a story that will
  make you believe in God. He refers the author to
  Piscine Molitor Patel who lives in Toronto,
  Cnanda. The novel then begins in Piscines voice

3
Things To Discover

• Survival-the limits of human endurance
• Tolerance of Cultures and Religion
• Faith vs. Belief
• Magic Realism
• Ritual

4
Things to Discover Contd

• Territory and Dominance
• Depravity and Civility in human instinct
• Hunger and Thirst
• Life and Death
• Truth vs. Lies
• Colour Motifs
• Pi

5
Major Characters

• Pi
• Gita and Santosh Patel
• Ravi Patel
• Richard Parker
• Mr. Kumars (teacher and the baker)

6
Critical Concepts

• Freudian Theory
• Conscious and Unconscious Mind
• Personality Theory
• Jungian Theory
• Shadow Self and
• Individuation

7
About Freud

• Sigmund Freud was was a Jewish Austrian
  neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school
  of psychiatry.
• Freud is best known for his theories of the
  unconscious mind
• Freud is also renowned for his redefinition of
  sexual desire as the primary motivational energy
  of human life
• Freud also used his theories of the conscious and
  unconscious mind to study dream analysis

8
About Jung

• Born July 26, 1875 in Kesswil, Switzerland. Died
  June 6, 1961 in Zurich, Switzerland.
• A prominent Swiss psychiatrist, and influential
  thinker and founder of analytical psychology.
• Jungs investigations into the human mind brought
  forth two ideas especially important and
  influential for literary criticism
• Collective unconscious
• The theory of the archetype

9
Lets start with Freud

• Major Theory 1- Conscious vs. Unconscious Mind
• HINT Remember the ICEBERG!

10
Iceberg Theory

• Freud believed that our psyche, or our mind, can
  be broken down into two major sections the
  conscious mind and the unconscious mind.
• The conscious mind represents everything we are
  conscious of, our every day lives, and reality.
  
• Our conscious mind is aware of our surroundings,
  our thoughts, our ideas and choices.

11
Iceberg Theory

• The conscious mind is the aspect of our mental
  processing that we can think and talk about
  rationally.
• A part of this includes our memory, which is not
  always part of consciousness but can be retrieved
  easily at any time and brought into our
  awareness.
• Freud called our regular memory, that we use on a
  regular basis the preconscious.

12
Iceberg Theory

• Freud called the other part of our mind the
  unconscious mind.
• This part of our psyche is a reservoir of
  feelings, thoughts, urges and memories that exist
  outside of our conscious awareness.
• According to Freud, the unconscious continues to
  influence our behaviour and experiences, even
  though we are unaware of the underlying
  influences.

13
Iceberg Theory

• Much of the contents of our unconscious mind are
  unpleasant, such as feelings of pain, anxiety or
  internal conflict.
• Because the unconscious mind exists outside our
  awareness, this means we are unaware of its
  contents.
• It is pushed down, deep inside our minds in a
  place that we cannot see or access, even though
  this is the larger portion or our psyche.
• An example of the unconscious mind is what has
  come to be known as a Freudian Slip.

14
Conscious vs. Unconsious

• What symbol can help you remember this theory?
• Why does this symbol work?
• Explain the conscious mind.
• Explain the unconscious mind.
• Give an example of a Freudian
• Slip.
• Why do you think Dream Analysis
• resulted from this theory?

15
Next Freudian Theory

• Major Theory 2 - Personality Theory
• HINT Remember the Scale!

16
Personality Theory

• According to Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytic
  theory of personality, personality is composed of
  three elements. These three elements of
  personality--known as the id, the ego and the
  superego--work together to create complex human
  behaviors

17
Personality Theory

• These three parts represent who we are and how we
  represent ourselves to the world.
• We use the image of the scale to help us remember
  this theory because the three parts are
  constantly swaying back and forth, trying to find
  some kind of balance.
• The Ego and Id are in a constant battle with each
  other

18
Personality Theory

• THE ID
• The id is the only component of personality that
  is present from birth.
• This aspect of personality is entirely
  unconscious and includes all of the instinctive
  and primitive behaviours.
• The id represents primitive desires
• It is the human want
• Represents chaos
• The id is driven by the pleasure principle which
  strives for immediate gratification of all
  desires, wants, and needs. If these needs are not
  satisfied immediately, the result is a state
  anxiety or tension.

19
Personality Theory

• THE SUPEREGO
• The superego is the aspect of personality that
  holds all of our internalized moral standards and
  ideals that we acquire from both our parents and
  society--our sense of right and wrong.
• The superego provides guidelines for making
  judgments.
• The superego represents the conscience
• It is the should of human beings
• It is socialized and represents order
• The superego acts to perfect and civilize our
  behavior. It works to suppress all unacceptable
  urges of the id and struggles to make the ego act
  upon idealistic standards rather that upon
  realistic principles.

20
Personality Theory

• THE EGO
• The ego is the component of personality that is
  responsible for dealing with reality.
• According to Freud, the ego develops from the id
  and ensures that the impulses of the id can be
  expressed in a manner acceptable in the real
  world.
• Essentially the ego works as a balancing force
  between the id and superego. It is like the
  center of the scale.
• The ego functions in all of the conscious,
  preconscious and the conscious mind.
• This is the self, or who you view yourself as.
• It is your personality and the way you portray
  yourself to the world.

21
Our Psyche
22
Review

• What helps us remember Freuds first theory?
• What helps us remember Freuds second theory?
• Explain the Superego.
• Explain the Id.
• Explain the Ego.
• What is the role of the ego?

23
Next Stop- Carl Jung

• Carl Jungs major concepts that we will look at
  are
• The Collective Unconscious
• The Theory of the Archetype
• From here, we will learn about our main focus
  which will be the archetype of the
• Shadow Self

24
The Collective Unconscious

• Jung shared some commonalities with Freud but
  felt that dreams were more than an expression of
  repressed wishes.
• suggested that dreams revealed both the personal
  and collective unconscious and believed that
  dreams serve to compensate for parts of the
  psyche that are underdeveloped in waking life.
• However, later research by Hall discovered that
  the traits people exhibit while they awake are
  also expressed in dreams.

25
The Collective Unconscious

• Jung agreed with Freud on the idea that everyone
  has a personal unconscious from which our
  motivations derive, however, Jung developed this
  theory further to suggest that one aspect of an
  individuals psyche is identical to all other
  members of the same species.
• Therefore a part of all minds go beyond personal
  experience and draw upon a common source.
• This concept goes beyond the spiritual, with Jung
  describing it as a biological function of the
  mind.

26
The Collective Unconscious

• For Jung, the experiences of the individual are
  conditioned by the experiences of the human race
  (all who have gone before). The unconscious
  mental record of these experiences, Jung called
  the collective unconscious.
• Essentially, Jung believed that each one of us
  have our own individual consciousness, but we
  also have a separate consciousness, one that has
  been passed down and is shared with all humans.
  We can relate this to our human instincts.
• Jung believed that the collective unconscious is
  not directly knowable but that it expresses
  itself in the form of an archetype.

27
Collective Unconscious

• HINT Remember the analogy of the
• FILING CABINET

28
The Archetype

• According to Jung an archetype is a figurethat
  repeats itself in the course of history whenever
  creative fantasy is fully manifested.
• The three fundamental qualities of an archetype
  are
• An archetype is a preconscious, instinctual
  expression of humans basic nature.
• An archetype is universal it is generated by
  humans psyche regardless of time of place.
• An archetype is recurrent. From prehistoric
  times until the end of the earth, it expresses
  humans reaction to essentially changeless
  situations.

29
Archetypes

• The number of possible archetypes is as unlimited
  as mans experiences, however, they may be
  grouped in three major categories
• Characters
• Situations
• Symbols or associations

30
Archetypes and the Shadow

• Jung recognizes a plethora of archetypes that
  exist within our collective unconscious.
• He believed that these models are innate,
  universal and hereditary.
• They outline how we experience the world around
  us.
• The Self, the Persona, the Anima or
  Animus and the Shadow are a short list of
  human archetypes that exist.

31
The Shadow

• The Shadow is a very common archetype that
  reflects deeper elements of our psyche, where
  latent dispositions, which are common to us all
  arise.
• It also reflects something that was once split
  from us in our early lives.
• It is, like its names sake, dark, shadowy,
  unknown and potentially troubling.
• It is, essentially, our opposite character.
• We can often see the shadow in others and
  recognize it in ourselves, however we more
  typically deny it in ourselves and project it
  onto others.

32
The Shadow

• It is the "dark side" of the ego, and the
• evil that we are capable of is often stored
  there.
• In actuality, the shadow is amoral -- neither
  good nor bad, just like animals. An animal is
  capable of tender care for its young and vicious
  killing for food, but it doesn't choose to do
  either.
• It is instinctive and irrational.
• It is also prone to projecting our issues onto
  others- for instance turning a personal
  inferiority into a perceived moral deficiency in
  someone else.
• The shadow may show itself in others, as stated
  above, in dreams or in hallucinations, but we
  frequently have interactions with it in some way.

33
Individuation

• Individuation is a process we undergo in order to
  develop our Self.
• This process is a life-long one and has many
  different levels.
• The ultimate goal is to merge our conscious and
  unconscious minds.

34
Individuation

• Part of this process involves encountering our
  shadow.
• During this merger with the shadow, there are two
  possibilities we can either
• Assimilate with it - meaning that we get a step
  closer to developing our sense of self or we
• Identify with it - meaning we lost the moral
  battle and do not come any closer to our own
  self-awareness.

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Now what does any of this have to do with Pi?

• That is what you need to find out
• GOOD LUCK!