Life of Pie Short Essay Questions

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.

I personally feel that Yann Martel’s intent was to establish a theme around mental boundaries. The two different forms of Pi’s story when he was stuck out in the middle of the ocean differ drastically. In one story there is the plot where Pi is stuck on a lifeboat with wild animals, and then in another story the boat is full of real people. The assumption is that Pi only substituted all the people with animals to create a more fictional version of the harsh reality that his family either died or was killed on that lifeboat. Keep this is mind when you consider the plot especially in parts two and three of the novel.

While on the raft, Pi discovers sea life living underneath it, he finds crabs, worms, small translucent shrimp, and more, “I tried everything but the worms, including the algae. Only the crabs didn’t have an unpalatably bitter or salty taste. Every time they appeared, I popped them one after another into my mouth like candy until there were none left. I couldn’t control myself.” (Martel, 2001, p. 251).

Firstly, Pi’s devotion for God was clear and he often seeks clarity from god. Throughout the novel, Pi’s love for God caused him to practice three major religion at the same time; breaking any barriers between Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Pi believes all three religions are equally true and interconnective as “[Islam and Christianity] both claim Abraham as theirs. Muslims say the God of the Hebrews and Christians is the same as the God of the Muslims. They recognize David, Moses, and Jesus as prophets” (80, Martel). Pi was morally ambiguous, he did not know if one religion would bring him closer to God than another causing him to follow all three. When Pi was stuck on the life boat, he often called out for help from god as he feared death. As he was giving up, a voice inside of him spoke from his heart and said “I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen” (164). Pi was uncertain whether or not he was going to survive however, he hoped through praying, he would as his faith in God brought him comfort.

Pi is an eager, outgoing, and excitable child, dependent on his family for comfort and support. In school, his few main concerns were to prevent his schoolmates from mispronouncing his name and learning as much and as fast as he can about religion and zoology. But when the ship went down Pi is torn from his family and left alone on a lifeboat with wild animals which would make anyone believe that they weren’t going to even make it through the night. The disaster gives him a reality check which makes him realize that he has to become self-sufficient. He mourns the loss of his family and fears for his life, which any normal sane person would do but he realizes that he has to take this challenge and make the best of what he can. He finds a survival guide and emergency provisions. He had to force himself to question his on values and decides that his vegetarianism is a luxury, and he wouldn’t make it a week without teaching himself how to fish. He manages to protect himself from Richard Parker the bangle tiger that has managed to get stuck on this boat with him and take on a parental relationship with the tiger, providing him with food and keeping him in line, to protect himself as well as keeping Richard Parker alive. The devastating shipwreck turns Pi into an adult, able to fend for himself out in the world alone. Which gives him good morals, and

Yann Martel manipulates the narrative style and structural devices within this passage to support the will to survive theme that is present in Life of Pi. Before the shipwreck, Pi was a spiritual individual with a strong appreciation for the joy and peace in life. Pi commonly experienced cruelty and doubt from his family and friends; however, he remained calm by following the guidance from his three religions. After the shipwreck, the spirituality within Pi’s life was tampered with because the chaotic and brute actions of the animals threatened to separate Pi from his peaceful demeanour. At first, Pi maintained his interaction with God, but as the days passed and the conditions worsened, Pi’s animal instincts began to develop.

Late afternoons to early evenings: Prayers. Sunset: prayers. Night: Prayers.” (211). While on the raft Pi praying as often as he did helped him keep faith in his survival and his life. If he was not constantly thinking of God and keeping God close to him, Richard Parker would have replaced God and Pi most likely would have ended up committing suicide. In him having faith in God and his survival, it gave him an extra push and more determination to survive for 227 days alone in the pacific on a life boat.

Before the ship sank, even before they went on the ship, Pi says that religion will save him. I think this statement is very true because it has saved him throughout his journey. He survived because of his religion. He says it himself that religion will save him, and it did save him.

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.

At the beginning of the novel, Pi’s story is described as “a story that will make you believe in God.” Writer himself Yann Martel was going thru his writers crisis, traveling world looking for a good story to write something about. Martel found a man who told his story. His man named Piscine Molitor Patel who is a practicing follower of three religions: Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. For this reason, extremely mature boy must constantly fight the lack of tolerance and understanding in his surroundings. While in the case of adult people the lack of a specific decision on the faith can be perceived as humiliating, but Pi is fully justified because of his young age. His desire is to find the road to the creator will be seriously tested during

Yann Martel establishes in the beginning of Life of Pi in the author’s note that the claim to the heart of the novel in this story will “make you believe in God.” Since God is an identity that exists in a fiction or non-fiction realm, the audience is led to believe that the story to be told is true, opening the reader to the idea that belief in anything can be belief in God. Pi makes sense of his life through the expressions of Hinduism, Christianity and Muslim, “That which sustains the universe beyond thought and language, and that which is at the core of us and struggles for expression.” (Pg.68) This emphasizes Pi’s dedication and devotion to his religions and God. Martel is opening up to Pi’s story to convince the reader to find faith in Pi’s words.

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

“And now I leave matters into the hands of God, who is love, and whom I love” (Martel, page 242) Pi believes that if he leaves himself in the “hands of God” that he will be saved, as he was so many times before. This is because, at this point in the book, Pi has been exposed to so many situations that would and should have killed him he feels as if God and religion will pull him through one last deterrent.

It is difficult to talk about the Life of Pi text without making a reference to faith, and the same goes with explaining Pi’s survival. Pi’s belief in pluralism and acceptance of the three religions, Hinduism, Christianity and Islam aid his future and is a crucial part of his survival at sea. His faith in knowing “so long as god is with me, I will not die” gives him the mental strength and will power to survive his ordeal. Even in the middle of the ocean, Pi practices all his religious rituals such as ‘‘solitary masses without consecrated Communion Hosts’’