Imagine yourself in a peaceful sleep. Suddenly you are awake. The crackle of lightning and the rocking of the boat scare you. You get up to see what all the fuss is about. Now you're on the bridge with the wind knocking you down. The skies open with buckets of rain hitting your skin with the refreshing mist of high waves falling softly on you. A piercing alarm and people's screams scratching your ears. A second later you're knee-deep in water. Then in the blink of an eye you are alone. In the dark, with nothing but water surrounding you. This is exactly where Pi was in Life of Pi. Sitting on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean watching the Tsimtum sink without knowing if his family had survived. The only things around him were a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra and Richard Parker, who is a tiger. The other animals on the lifeboat didn't have names, so why would this particular animal have a name? Why is this animal important enough to be given a name, let alone a name created for a human? The name, Richard Parker, was not chosen by chance. It has too much meaning and history behind it to not just be a coincidence. Martel definitely chose that specific name for a reason. Richard Parker's original name was Thirsty, but due to a mix-up with the paperwork, his name became Richard Parker. The name, Richard Parker, has many meanings that describe exactly how the “tiger” acts. The name has been mentioned several times in history and all have involved the sea. The first time the name appeared to the public was in a novel written by Edgar Allen Poe. Since the publication of the novel, there have been many shipwrecks of people named Richard Parker over the years...... half of the paper......homas Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy." Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. IEP. Web. 15 January 2014. http://www.iep.utm.edu/hobmoral/3"theology." Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 15 January 2014.4 "Philosophy, Inc. 15 January 2014 "How Richard Parker Came to Get His Name." Amazon.com, Inc. Web January 16, 2014. http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie= UTF8&docId=309590"Calvin and Hobbes. " Wikipedia .Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, January 15, 2014. Web. January 16, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes" Richard Parker (Wikimedia sailor). Foundation, Inc, April 1, 2013. Web, January 16, 2014. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Parker_(sailor)