Life Of Pi Short Story

Throughout the entire novel the author gives us characteristics about Pi, he is the protagonist and, for most of the novel the narrator. In the chapters that frame the story and tell us everything that has happened they portray Pi as a shy, graying, middle-aged boy, whom tells the author about his early childhood and the shipwreck that changed his life, and gave him a new friendship with someone whom you would never believe a human could become friends with. This novel makes everyone question the truth which makes us wonder if Pi’s story is accurate and makes us wonder what pieces we should believe. Pi emphasizes the importance of choosing the better story which makes

Pi’s life before the boat crashing was full of hope and wonder. His presence was ethereal, making a purpose out of everything around him. His family ran a zoo, which gave him a tight-knit relationship with animals. Pi loved to try new things. He met new people which led to his exploration

Pi’s narration also supports the theme of the importance of storytelling. As the only evidence of the story, people have no choice but to believe what he tells them, however wild it seems because while he might lack evidence, they don’t have any at all. When Pi is recalling his story to the Japanese in charge of the sinking, he tells them two stories, one with animals and one with people. One version, although it may be factually true, does nothing to reveals the emotions and masked memories that should not resurface. By creating the animals Pi blocks his mind from

After being rescued Pi’s tells his and Richard Parker’s amazing survival story, but no one believes it. Pi then begins to tell a different version of events without animals. While similar to the original story the survival of a young boy lost at sea the new story depicts

In The Hills of Zion by H.L. Mencken, various stylistic devices and rhetorical strategies are used such as similes and imagery. Mencken uses similes in order to show how religion made the people of the hills fully convinced in their religious rituals. This can be seen when Mencken and a woman went to a religious gathering in which the priest spoke and ”Words spouted from his lips like bullets from a machine-gun”, and a woman “bent backward until she was like half a loop” in addition to “bouncing all over the place, like a chicken with its head cut off.” Such figurative language is used by Mencken in order to display how religion made the people of the hill appear unusual as well as fully convinced in their religion. Furthermore, various

The Japanese interviewers reinforce the reoccurring theme of faith and religion at the end of the novel when Pi is saved. Soon after Pi turns to God for comfort he washes up on a beach in Mexico. The people who found him took him to their village. He was later brought to the hospital by a police car, and that’s where his story ends. Two Japanese interviewers then introduced themselves to Pi, in hope to discover the mystery as to the sinking of the ship Tsimtsum, of which he was a passenger. The interrogation begins and Pi describes his journey. As soon as he reaches the end of his story, Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba discuss and comment in disbelief. After minutes of deliberation Mr. Okamoto replies with “Mr. Patel, we don’t believe your story” (324). They doubt

Pi's story of survival is one based on and very similar to two stories in the bible. The first is David and Goliath, a story of overcoming overwhelming odds. David, just like Pi ,was a young teenager at the time and managed to kill a powerfully known giant, Goliath. What are the chances? Same goes for Pi, a youth who survived 227 days with a tiger. He too overcame the odds, so much so, it was unbelievable. Even the investigators said, "In an lifeboat? Come on, Mr. Patel it's just too hard to believe!...We just don't believe there was a tiger on your lifeboat" (Martel, 163). Jonah and the whale is another biblical story that illustrates similar motives in Pi. Jonah refused to let his life "end" and get eaten by the whale. The same case with Pi, but instead of a whale, it was a tiger he refused to get eaten by. He set out a plan to tame Richard Parker until one day "...the lifeboat was resembling a zoo enclosure more and more: Richard Parker had his sheltered area for sleeping and resting, his food stash, his lookout, and now his water hole" (Mantel,101). From the beginning of the story, Pi spent a significant amount of time studying religion. One in particular was Christianity, a religion that teaches both these stories. If one overcame the odds and the other managed not to get swallowed by the whale, what were the chances he would merit to be just like them?

When writing, authors focus on what they wish for their audience to gain from the story, what they want the readers to learn from the actions and thoughts of the narrator. In The Life of Pi Yann Martel uses Pi and his experiences whether the audience believes Pi’s grand story of his survival or not, to impart upon them the relativity of truth. In the beginning this is shown threw Pi’s explorations with different religions already guiding the reader to consider what truth means with his thoughts on the different religions. It is later explored in Pi’s telling of what occurred to him while shipwrecked to the officials and their reactions to his tale. Especially once it becomes clear that the few differences between the stories were the lack of animals in one. Pi asks the officials which story they prefer; the officials can choose to believe whichever story they prefer, and that version becomes the truth to them.

When the boat was searched by the investigators, there was little to prove that Pi was indeed trapped with a Bengal tiger. When Pi told Mr. Tomohiro Okamoto and his junior colleague, Mr. Atsuro Chiba, to look in the boat for proof, they did not find any traces of a tiger having being present. Instead, they found what Pi claimed to be meerkat bones that were eaten by Richard Parker after their departure from the island but what were actually bones from another pest that escaped from the sinking Tsintsum, and which was eaten by one of the lifeboat’s human inhabitants, “We have no proof they were meerkat bones” (300). The educated investigators reasoned that the bones came from the animals from the ship and that meerkats were not the likely victims.

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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

In Pi's 227 days of being stranded in the sea, he has had many problems that have

He starts out with a zebra, hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger, but the animals slowly diminish leaving only Pi and Richard Parker. Pi works to tame and care for Richard Parker, and the two survive for two hundred twenty-seven days. Pi encounters a fellow French castaway who is eaten by Richard Parker (Martel 311-320). Pi also comes across a man-eating island (Martel 322-358). The events that take place are fairly far-fetched, and the probability of all of them occurring to the same person in the period of time given is even less believable. The second story, on the other hand, is a perhaps more believable retelling of the original story. Pi relates the second tale upon the request of his interviewers for “‘a story without animals’” (Martel 381). In this story the animals are replaced with human representatives including an injured Chinese sailor, a French cook, Pi’s mother, and Pi himself. The second story, like the first, begins with many passengers on the boat, but in the end it leaves only Pi to survive by himself after brutally murdering and eating the cook who killed both the sailor and Pi’s own mother (Martel 381-391). Unlike Pi’s first story, this account is dark, desperate, and harshly realistic, without any sense of hope to counter it all. After relating both of these stories to his interviewers, Pi asks them which story they think is better (Martel 398). Although the

Without it, no species would survive.”(Martel, 2011, p. 41). For him to deal with trauma and the struggle, he chose madness and formed a story that would keep him sane. Pi gives the Japanese a choice, similar to himself. He chose to believe the story that gave him comfort rather than the one that would have caused him pain. Pi’s faith and fear of God had also kept him alive, the island gave him faith of survival but his fear led him to cover the murder he committed. Pi failed to realize the two stories he told by fit together flawlessly. He is also irritated when asked to tell the story with the humans, this ultimately indicates he was not ready to consider the darker side which is more plausible. Everyone has different approach of coping through life changing events, the subconscious mind determines the creates stories that are created. The subconscious picks the story that gives an individual comfort and strength to survive, even though the story might not be true. Some choose to believe is fantastical stories, other believe only what is plausible. Ultimately, when an individual is dealing with trauma it is hard to differentiate between reality and illusion. It is the comforting story that helps to cope with loss and

Pi could survive on the ocean for many months is a miracle, and he even stayed with a tiger during the venture. He probably was eaten by the tiger, but he didn’t. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, Pi survival depended on his past experiences, Pi not only survives, he becomes stronger due to learning how to swim when he was young, believing in three religions, and stay with animals for a long time because he father used to own a zoo.