Power of Religion in Yann Martel's Life of Pi Essay example

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

In the early stages of Life of Pi, Martel mentions a place that Pi and Ravi had gone to visit while on vacation. While looking aimlessly through the window, they noticed three hills. On top of one hill was a catholic church, another a Hindu temple, and the other a Muslim mosque. Each hill portrays each of the religions in Pi’s complex faith. The hills represent Pi’s struggles to understand each religion. Later on, we find out that Pi is caught in between these three religions. He couldn’t completely disregard any of the religions, so each one kept warring for a place in his life. In How to Read Literature like a

Pi’s dedication to all three religions: Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, built a stronger bond between God and himself. It gave him character and strength as God was alongside him throughout the entire journey. The bond he shared with God also helped him keep his sanity and maintain his will to live.

Martel describes Pi as a gentle boy with many curiosities and a great interest in variety, especially multiple religions, those of which are Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity, and shares that the adult Pi studies cosmogony, any theory concerning the coming into existence or origin of the universe, or about how reality came to be. Pi’s

The Life of Pi is a book filled with many fantasy adventures that will have an excellent impact on what you may or not believe in. This novel was published in 2001 by author Yann Martel. Yann Martel is a writer who is trying to make sense of life, just like any other human being trying to deal with everyday obstacles. In this book we see that the protagonist, Piscine Molitor also known as Pi takes us through an adventure that will question our faith in religion. Pi is not pleased by only following his ancestors’ beliefs; he believes that there is much more to religion. In The life of Pi we see that Pi argues amongst his family in what he wants to believe in. His father is not at all religious and Pi has taken up religion as a hobby. Now Pi is a Hindu, Muslim and a Christian and he undergoes a tragedy, a shipwreck with his family on voyage to Canada from India. As he goes through this process it puts his faith to the test. At the time of this voyage he is a teenager exploring different beliefs and he sees nothing wrong with believing in three different religions. We can argue that there is a war between religion and science. Pi on the other hand does not argue with those of other beliefs, he calls the atheists his brethrens as well. “It was my first clue that atheist are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry

Piscine Montair Patel was a firm believer in God through Hinduism beliefs. As he begins to grow up and experience new things, Pi stumbles upon Christianity when visiting a church at age fourteen. The Father there explains to Pi about the story of Christ to which he listens in with horror. Despite his negative reaction to the story, Pi grows fascinated with the religion and asks to be become a Christian. That wasn’t all though. At the age of fifteen, he happen to come across a Muslim bread baker, Mr. Kumar, who intrigued him when Pi saw him do his daily prayers in the midst of the conversation. This would then lead to his conversion of Islam, along with his Hindus and Christian beliefs. Even though Pi is satisfied

“I have a story to make you believe in God” (Martel ix). However, the interpretation of “God” is very fluid. There are hundreds of religions throughout the world, each of which has thousands of followers. The four main ones however, are Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Buddhism. All but one, Buddhism, focus on one or more God(s). In Yann Martel’s book, Life of Pi, Pi breaks the social norm and follows all four religions as opposed to one. Throughout the novel, Pi follows Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, while subconsciously practicing Buddhism.

Pi feels it is okay to practice all three religions because they all have one goal or purpose which is the belief in God. Since each story he has heard is different, it does not take away from the main moral. This ties in with the imagination aspect because no matter how a story is told, the end result is the same. An example of this is when he is confronted and surrounded by the Priest, Pandit, and Imam. His response as to why he was practicing Hindu, Christian and Muslim faiths was, “Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God.”(Page 76) Believing in all three religions is something Pi feels is important to him because he is just trying to love and pray to God in as many ways as possible. Although the stories are interesting, it doesn’t really matter how you got to the ending if the purpose of the story is the equal. The important of Pi’s imagination is triggered by this and has later gone into great effect. The religions he practices represent hat behind every reason, everyone has their own way of saying it, whether it be fiction or non-fiction.

In the beginning of the Life of Pi, Yann Martel establishes his theme of truth being relative through the main character, Pi. When Pi was confronted about worshiping three different religions, he says,

In the book Life of Pi the author Yann Martel wrote about a young boy named Pi Patel surviving on a lifeboat by himself. Throughout the entire book Pi was very close to religion and in the end his religions were the main reason he had survived. At the start of the book Yann Martel introduces three religions, Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. There are three main points that aided in Pi’s survival. One being that Pi was open to religions and started to follow the Islamic faith. The second reason is that Islam believed that one should pray five times a day, and Pi did exactly this. The last reason is that the religion

Throughout the novel, Pi’s thoughts reveal and internal struggle between his desire to live and his own beliefs to what is morally right. Pi grows up on varying religious viewpoints because he studies different religions. His religious diversity forms a moral standard of “dignity not …depravity” (Martel 71). He values dignity and character over corruption of morals initially because he sees

The way Pi acts throughout his journey suggests that having faith is one of the most important practises to learn as it can give an individual hope. Pi has a strong connection to all his practising faiths: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Society is set to have many unspoken rules that we must abide by to

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.

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.

Martel (2002:19) “I know zoos are no longer in people good graces and religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both”. Through this quote the reader notice that there are aspects related between zoology and religion in Life of Pi. In the beginning of the novel we are introduced to zoology and religion. The author make it clear to the reader that Pi had majors in both subjects zoology and religion and later use that knowledge to help him do things one can say is impossible.