Chapters 55-63

Summary:

Pi spends a restless night in the lifeboat.  As day breaks, a realization comes to him.  Tigers from the area that Richard Parker came from are known to drink salt water and are strong swimmers.  Richard Parker could easily swim to the raft and eat him and survive on sea water.  Pi cannot outlast the tiger.
As Pi sits on his raft, racked with fear, he watches Richard Parker.  The tiger lifts his head and makes a noise known as prusten, a small puff through the nose that expresses friendly relations and no ill-will.

(trimyth)

Pi becomes grateful for Richard Parker's presence.  He would rather have the company of a tiger than no company at all.  This gratefulness allows Pi to realize that his situation was perfect for that of taming a tiger.  He has the perfect ring with no corners to his in, fish provide an endless supply or treats, and he had a whistle which could serve as a whip.  Nothing is standing in his way.  Pi Patel will tame a Bengal tiger.  Pi stands and shouts.  He blows the whistle several harsh times at Richard Parker until he retreats to under the tarpaulin.  

Later that day Pi reels the raft towards the lifeboat to get supplies.  He notices that Richard Parker has marked his territory on the boat, but only under the tarpaulin, a promising sign.  In return, Pi marks his own territory atop the tarpaulin.  

Pi spends the next few days improving his raft and learning to fish.  After much failure, Pi makes his first catch: a 3-foot long dorado.  As he kills the dorado he witnesses an incredible thing: death-knell iridescence.  As the dorado dies, it flickers and shimmers in all colors of the rainbow in rapid succession.

Solar stills become a new key to Pi's survival.  These devices harness solar power to convert salt water into fresh water.  Tending to the solar stills becomes a part of the daily routine Pi developed during the 227 days he is on the boat.  227 days.  

Metaphor:

Yann Martel deploys many elements of figurative language to help convey to the reader what Pi observes.  It is a rare thing to be a castaway, much less a castaway for seven months with a 450-pound Bengal tiger.  To assist the reader in understanding Pi's situation, Martel compares something the reader is unfamiliar with to something they are familiar with.  For example, one night as Pi looks down at the water, he discovers that "the sea is a city...[with] highways, boulevards, streets, and roundabouts bustling with submarine traffic.  In water that was dense, glassy and flecked by millions of lit-up specks of plankton, fish like trucks and buses and cars and bicycles and pedestrians were madly racing about," (Martel 175).

("Times Square")

(Melanie, Pinole)

Both have bright colors and lots of traffic.  Even if people cannot witness what it really looks like in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they can compare it to cities they have seen to get an idea of what it looks like.

Sources:

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

Pinole, Melanie. "Dive Under the Sea with These Ocean Wallpapers." Lifehacker. Kinja, 14 June 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

"Times Square." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Mar. 2015. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

trimyth.  "Krista the Bengal Tigress doing the prusten!" Online video clip.  Youtube.  YouTube, 20 Jun.  Web.  22 Mar. 2015.