Well spotted! After perusing the relevant chapters, I can
say that you are right to express confusion about this, precisely because the text never
tells us how Richard Parker does regain his vision. We are told that Richard Parker is
blind in Chapter 90, when Pi looks into his eyes "like an eye doctor" and Richard Parker
looks back vacantly. As Pi says, "Only a blind wild cat would fail to react to such a
stare." This of course comes just before Pi himself goes blind and the encounter with
another mystery castaway on the ocean, whom Richard Parker kills. The next reference we
are given to Richard Parker and his sight comes when they reach the carnivorous island
that serves as a shelter for them both for a while, and we are told that Richard Parker
is seeing again perfectly fine:
readability="6">
Richard Parker was observing me from the
lifeboat. He was looking at the island,
too.
No reference is made as
to how he regained his vision, but we can only assume that at some point during Pi's own
episode of blindness, Richard Parker regained his sight.
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