2 Blog #2

"Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
This week I read pages 14-30. The book started in the time period where Jacob was in a nursing home, but is now in an extended flashback of when Jacob was in college. Jacob was attending college when he was informed that both of his parents had died in a car crash. He immediately felt sick and had to leave college in the midst of finals to cope with his parents’ deaths. This reminds me of the book I read last quarter called “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel. In “Life of Pi”, Pi also began with a happy life. He liked studying the zoo animals around him and different religions. Similarly, Jacob was happy studying at a very good college, Cornell. Their happy lives were both interrupted when they lost their parents. Pi lost his parents when his family was traveling on a boat. The boat sank and Pi’s parents drowned. Jacob lost his parents in a car accident. These events relate to the Monomyth we have been studying in class. Both Pi and Jacob had ideal circumstances surrounding their childhood. Pi was content studying animals and Jacob was content studying at Cornell. Also both characters left on a journey. Pi left his home in India on a boat. He was stranded in the middle of the ocean in a lifeboat after the ship sank. After Jacob discovered his parents’ deaths he left Cornell. He walked far away from the college, unsure of where he was going. He arrived at some train tracks. He saw a train going by and jumped onto it. Both boys crossed the point of no return because Pi couldn’t jump out of the lifeboat and Jacob couldn’t jump out of the train.