Life Of Pi Rhetorical Analysis

Pi was deeply affected as a child by the way people treated him as a result of his religious beliefs. Pi’s dad was very critical of his beliefs. At one point Pi’s father questions Pi about how he can practice three religions at once. Pi replies that they are the same

In the novel, Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, the theme of truth is seen most prominently in the last part of the book when main character, Piscine Patel is being interviewed by two Japanese men. Pi defines truth as being relative and an invention of man, when the believability of his story is questioned. He argues that even stories, such as his, can still be true to some no matter how difficult to believe they are.

In this article the meaning of Existentialism is explained as the author, Randall Niles, describes how existentialism is a 20th century philosophy that centers itself on the analysis of human existence. He explains the popular slogan “existence precedes essence” by the very first founders of Existentialism, Jean Paul Sartre. The notion of the slogan is described by explaining how humans come into existence when they are first born, and spend their lifetime changing their essence and nature so it satisfies them. The philosophy of Existentialism is further analysed by explaining how humans find themselves and the ultimate meaning of their life by acknowledging their responsibility and making decisions accordingly. Moreover, it also explains

As explained in the book, Pi follows three different religions; Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Pi is extremely interested in all three religions and tries to find himself through religion. Although, he does not understand why he can’t follow all three religions. “But he can’t be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim. It’s impossible. He must choose.” (76) This thread represents that he dedicates himself to the things he believes in and will fight for what he believes in. Even when his family disagreed with his decision of following all three religions, he still fought for what he believed.

In Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, he wants the reader to decipher whether his first story or his second story is real. The first story consists of the protagonist, Piscine Patel, being trapped on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, and many other animals from his father’s zoo after they were lost together at sea. In the second story, Piscine re-tells a different story with a chef, his mother, and a sailor, this was to give the Japanese investigators “a story that wont surprise them (you)” (Martel 302). Martel clearly wishes the reader to understand why “Pi” might

As Pi has to fight through adversity when he is stranded in a the middle of the Pacific Ocean, he has to adjust his eating habits. When one is in a situation where there is not much to eat, any little thing must be consumed. As a very famous proverb says, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” This was Pi’s most difficult challenge when he was on the boat. As a child, Pi grew up to be a vegetarian. The idea of killing and then consuming an animal really freaked out Pi. He remembered from his childhood, “To think that when I was a child I always shuddered when I snapped open a banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of an animal's neck” (197). Even when Pi was eating something like a banana that is not related at all to an animal, he

Storytelling is a form of human expression; when something cannot be said outright, storytelling is often utilized. This is due to the fact that, it is interactive, it calls for an imagination and it tells the story the author really wants to tell. Pi uses storytelling to mask the realism of his condition, in other words, to sugar coat what is actually happens to him. Through storytelling he is able to pick and choose exactly what he wants to accept and change what troubles him so that he can remain both faithful and fearless. Throughout his entire order, Pi never accepted anything at its face value; he always added a twist to make himself feel better. “In both stories the ship sinks…which story do you prefer.” (Martel, 352). Pi asks the two detectives which story they believe since it makes no difference; they both liked the one with the animals. It goes to show humans choose to believe the beautiful, but absurd, story they all reject the nasty reality. Accepting the reality makes an event all the more real. It explains why Pi chooses to turn everything into a story; through it he chooses what he wants to accept and what he doesn’t. Storytelling allows you to take away and add to an experience the way you choose to. It gives its

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

Yann Martel’s theme of truth being relative is again established when Pi experiences a shipwrecked. On the lifeboat, Pi continues to survive living with a bengal tiger, he survives after seeing the other animals on the boat kill each other, and he survives by eating fish even though he is a vegetarian. Inspite of all the suffering Pi is going through he still turns towards God. This is proved when Pi says, “I practised religious rituals that I adapted to the circumstances – solitary Masses without priests or consecrated Communion Hosts, darshans without murtis, and pujas with turtle meat for prasad, acts of devotion to Allah not knowing where Mecca was and getting my Arabic wrong. They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh, it was hard. Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up...The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining light in my heart. I would go on loving” (208-209). Through this quote, Yann Martel is showing how Pi continues to worship God even though he was suffering and struggling with his faith. Pi still believes that God is the most important to him inspite of what his is going through emotionally

Due to Pi’s devotion to all of his faiths, particularly Hinduism, not only changed how he thought about his current situation, but also changed how he would think about every single situation after in Martel’s Life of Pi.

Like all story’s each has an ending to it, but in Life of Pi, the investigators of the sunken ship, wanted straight facts, instead of any storytelling that would make them look like fools. Pi’s questioning of the officers led to his question “tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?”(Martel, 311) Pi’s question, about which story was real was never answered, due to the ambiguity of his storytelling. Pi’s storytelling of his journey, lacked a final resolution, as it is left open for the reader to pick which story was better, regardless of which one is the actual

There are certain events in our lives that can change a person. When an Individual goes through traumatic events, their subconscious has a method to trick them into believing events that have not occurred. In Life of Pi, Yann Martel creates two stories of what happens to the main character Pi. One about the animals and other about Pi being a murderer and turning cannibalistic. The two stories that are told are so identical, it seems that all Pi did was replace animals with humans. This gives us a deeper insight into Pi's subconscious and his method of dealing with the trauma and struggle caused by his journey.

The evident motif of religion plays a major factor in Pi’s life; however the author chooses not to focus on one religion specifically but instead enforces a glorification of more religions. Martel creates a main character who is a curious young boy who decides to learn about Christianity, Hinduism and Islam all at once. Even though Pi is primarily

In Life of Pi there is one main character who stays with the reader throughout the whole novel, Pi Patel. Pi Patel was a boy who surrounded himself with religion, he believed in Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Believing in three religions proved to be unhelpful to Pi as people questioned his belief system. At one point three of Pi’s religious leaders meet up and argue over Pi’s beliefs, “The priest broke it when he said, with pride in his voice, ‘Piscine is a good Christian boy. I hope to see him join our choir soon.’ My parents, the pandit and the imam looked surprised. ‘You must be mistaken. He’s a good Muslim boy. He comes without fail to Friday prayer, and his knowledge of the Holy Qur’an is coming along nicely.’ So said the imam. My parents, the priest and the pandit looked incredulous. The pandit spoke. ‘You’re both wrong. He’s a good Hindu boy. I see him all the time at the temple coming for darshan and performing

Yann Martel’s “Life of Pi” is a widely revered Canadian fantasy adventure novel centered around its narrator, Piscine ‘Pi’ Patel, his early discovery of religion, and his subsequent journey of practicality and spirituality. In the author’s note at the beginning of the novel, the unseen speaker claims that the story that follows “will make you believe in god”. While Pi remains a vigilant religious scholar even through trauma in which his beloved god seems to abandon him, thorough analysis will reveal that the entire text could be interpreted as a thickly veiled atheistic message using Pi’s own self-contradictions and hypocrisy to convince readers that religion is not a realistic source to anchor themselves to, and that logical reasoning is the only way to truly know and understand the world around them.