First Person And Central Narrator In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

In Life of Pi, his long journey and ardent will to stay alive can alone discribe pi’s transformation from a confused and sheltered boy, into a young man who is now mentally broke but somehow uses his psychological experience to strengthen himself. Pi’s spirituality and religion pushes the reader to shift its perspective.

The main characters in the story Life of Pi are a boy named Piscine Molitor Patel also known as Pi, a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and a boat. The story is about a young man who survived a shipwreck of the Tsimtsum but, lost his family. He was put into a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, a Bengal tiger, and an orangutan. He makes it alive off the boat with the Bengal tiger, both however severely ill in two hundred and twenty-seven days. Pi made it to a hospital and was interviewed by two Japanese men who were wondering how the Tsimtsum sunk.

Most people don’t have to suffer trauma in a lifeboat all by themselves. Further, most people don’t have to retell their story years after with accuracy. That is exactly what Pi has to do in Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi. There are many challenges that Pi goes through that Pi goes through that could make him an unreliable narrator including a lack of written records, trauma, loneliness, and the effects dehydration and malnutrition has in a person. Furthermore, by considering Pi’s unreliability the reader comes to understand that the truth of his story remains irrefutable and therefore the truth is more important than the facts. Pi could be assumed by the reader to be an unreliable narrator through a lack of written record of his experiences from the past, his trauma and loneliness at sea, and the mental effects of dehydration, malnutrition and hallucinations.

Life of Pi begins with an unique hook in its author’s note. In the author’s note, the fictional author is struggling to come up with a new book concept. He travels to India for inspiration and this is where he meets Francis Adirubasamy, or better known as Mamaji in the book. Adirubasamy claims that he has “a story that will make you believe in God”. After he recounts on the story, the author is determined to meet up with the main character, and he was reeled into the amazing world known as the Life of Pi. As the author listens into Mr. Patel’s adventure, his main objective was to believe in God and this was obviously completed from a quote in the author’s note. “...I agreed with Mr. Adirubasamy that this was, indeed, a story to make you believe in God.”

When pressed on the issue of the lack of credibility of the animal story, Pi is forced to give a second, human story because it is the only story that would be reasonably believable, full of “dry yeastless factuality”.

Commentary: The author’s note is the story of how Pi’s story came to life. The author meets a friend of a guy who recalls and elaborates on his journey to Canada. The description is helpful in the understanding of how and why the book was made and it’s beneficial to know where the plot line came from.

Once rescued, Pi’s credibility is questioned as he embellishes the accounts of his journey to the Japanese inspectors who find his story unlikely. Pi’s reasoning and rationale are based on illusions and mirages he envisioned while stranded on the lifeboat. His story demonstrates his desire to create a different story in order to avoid the harsh facts of life. Delving into deep and often complex truths, as Gladwell did in Outliers, enforces the reader to face the realities of life as they are and not live under any false illusions. Pi Patel, in Martel’s Life of Pi, differs from Gladwell in that he desires to live in a world of comforting lies. As he narrates his journey to others, Pi fabricates many aspects of the story in order to deceive himself and others surrounding

1. Firstly, part three of the novel presents the reader with a change in the form of the narrative. Up until chapter ninety-six, as we’ve seen, the novel has consisted of two types of narrative: first person from the point of view of the author, and Pi’s first-person account, which is constructed by the author. Now, the exchanges between Pi, Mr. Okamoto, and Mr. Chiba are entirely dialogue. The new form of narrative is a third-person transcription, which lacks rich detail, potential illusion, and over exaggeration. As an audience, we perceive this as solid, factual information. But, Pi is also preparing to retell another version of his survival story. We now have to decide what story—one, both, or none, is the true story.

Pis motivations to help the man figure out what happened to the boat, causes him to tell the story of what he went though this time with people instead of animals. Pi spins the tale of the cook, the sailor, his mother and Himself, how they were left in the lifeboat and their interaction between them, until Pi is the only one left alive. These two stories are left to the reader to decide for himself which tale they prefer. Yann Martel shows that although Pi believes, in his heart, that the story with Richard Parker is what really happened, but wants to know what happened to the boat and why his family died, was willing to tell a tale that completely disregarded the story of Richard Parker. This shows the dedication Pi has to his

Pi (and by extension, the author, Yann Martel) seems to think that what should compel one to believe a story is whether the story is a good one – whether it helps readers “see higher or further or differently”. Story and narrative automatically cause viewpoint, or perspective. Perspective as a literary device is a result of stories with framed narration. Is this narrator trustworthy, asks the reader in that ageless dilemma, can I believe what is written? As a form of narration, it both enriches and challenges perspectives on truth. Truth, it seems to say, can also be multi-faceted, appearing in many viewpoints.

On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which

Throughout Life of Pi by Yann Martel we, as readers, get to re-live the struggles and heartaches faced by Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi. As he experienced these trials he not only grew into manhood earlier than expected, but also built a relationship with God giving him the determination to continue his survival. Pi had to provide for his own needs as he floated through the Pacific.

The fiction story, Life of Pi, displays a relationship between a youthful boy and faith. The book, written by the Spanish author Yann Martel, depicts the arduous and crucial journey of a young, religious boy. Named Piscine Molitor Patel, often referred as Pi, he encounters a dilemma regarding his spirituality. The text consists of three parts that take place in entirely different places: the first one in his hometown; Pondicherry, the second one stranded on the Pacific Ocean with Richard Parker, the ferocious tiger, and the third one in America, where he lives the rest of his life. The author interlocks Pi’s actual life to the three parts to give an understanding of his beliefs. Accordingly, he mere point in this story is how significant is faith in defining and shaping a person, in this

To begin, the use of the major conflict within the story, rooting from the lost life of many including his family, and the various horrendous events that took place afterwards, the passage is to be believed as part of the resolution used by Pi. While using the fictional story to come to terms with a universe where a God truly exist whether knowable facts are provided to assist in proving this or not. He becomes content to recover in such a way, his religion and faith are there to help. In addition, the authors use of imagery and language in every part of the novel, such as the animals bring forth an emotional and devastating connection to the reader. While on the other hand, a sense of reality is present through the main character's shipwreck story by the contexts relation to worldwide views and issues of mental health, and the power of religion and faith. Therefore, within this passage, it is brought to the attention of the investigators that the fantasy retelling (with the mixture of crucial themes) of the terrifying story is the only way Pi could survive mentally in order to not come to terms with the events which

Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, tells us the story about a Young boy called Piscine Molitor Patel, who had to overcome different situations in a hard period of his life. This young boy grew up in India; nonetheless due to some issues, his family had to move to Canada with the animals of the Zoo of which they were owners. During the travel, the ship “Tsintsum” sank, and Pi lost his family with everything they once had. However, Pi was the only human survivor of that tragedy. The story changed completely when he jumps to a lifeboat in the middle of the disaster to save his life.