Theme Of Faith And Instinct In 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.

Life of Pi is a thrilling novel by Yann Martel, telling the story of a two hundred and twenty-seven day journey on a lifeboat between a religious boy and an adult bengal tiger. After losing his family in a shipwreck, Pi Patel is stuck on a lifeboat with a 450 pound Richard Parker. Together, they sail aimlessly, using the boat’s limited resources to survive. Throughout the novel Pi uses God as a way to cope with the multiple tragedies and obstacles he faces. In times of great difficulty, humans can lose their morals and values in exchange for survival.

Life of Pi takes the reader through Pi’s life and frequently turns back to his faith as a means of survival. As a young child Pi was deeply affected by the way people treated him because of his religious beliefs. Love, the core part of the Christian faith, contributed to Pi’s survival during his journey on the lifeboat. While Pi was on the lifeboat Martel makes various references to the Christian religion. As Pi aged and became deeply rooted in the faith it also kept him going.

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.

As he identifies with the probable pain that the fish he has caught is going to suffer, he cannot bring himself to slaughter it, “I imagined what it would feel like if I were wrapped in a blanket and someone were trying to break my neck. I was appalled. I gave up a number of times” (183). This identification clearly makes Pi hesitate in killing the fish, as he puts himself in the place of the fish and what it might feel like to have someone “trying to break” his neck. It is an imaginative act, as Pi must have the capacity to imagine how another being will feel, in a situation which he has not

Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, is a novel about a young boy, Pi, trapped with a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker who survive together in the Pacific Ocean for 227 days. The central theme of the novel is Pi’s faith in God, which proves to be a crucial part of his survival during the extreme situation. In the book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster, the author talks about the importance of literary elements such as symbols, geography, and stories to a literary piece. These elements are used in Life of Pi to develop its compelling story about growing up.

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

Throughout Yann Martel’s Life of Pi many elements of the novel blur the lines of reality and fantasy. This leaves multiple facets of perspectives in his readers. I Patel is thrust to the forefront of a catastrophic ordeal resulting in the loss of everything he knows s and loves. As this occurs we begin to see the total brutality of survival in both stories. Martel’s phenomenal use of symbolism, dualism, and religious allegory eloquently convey this imaginative world of brutality, savagery, and thirst for survival.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is an extraordinary tale of a young Indian boy whose faith is syncretized. His alternate world that he has fabricated is used to blur the line between the harsh and brutal nature of the sea and the personified world where animals come to life. These two worlds clash together to form a Kafkaesque in a faith-based realm which ultimately makes readers question the realities of life.

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

When Yann Martel tells of Pi Patel’s life story after the shipwreck, he presents it in two distinctive ways: one being with animals, and one without. As a young boy, Pi began to develop a love of animals as a result of growing up on the lands of Pondicherry Zoo, his family zoo in India. He also finds that he has a deep passion for religion. Supposedly, Life of Pi will make one believe in God, as it did to Pi in these two stories.

This translates to his time on the lifeboat in a couple of ways. On the boat, Pi’s food rations were running sparse, he needed food. He was met with the decision of killing a fish for food. The very thought of taking a life, even of just a fish, hurt him inside, “I covered the fish’s head with a blanket and turned the hatchet around” Pi then showed his discomfort of the situation, “the idea of beating a soft, living head with a hammer was simply too much”(Martel 183), Pi not wanting to kill a fish, even for his own survival shows us that he really believed all life was sacred and had value. Everynight pi included the zebra that was killed and the first fish he had to kill in his prayers.

In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the idea of good versus evil and animal versus human nature is shown to be an integral part of the storyline. Martel questions the boundaries between human and animal nature and makes powerful statements for both sides. These themes are critical to the human condition, through this Martel is able to create a balance between the opposing sides.

Laura Ann and I have begun reading Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi. After reading this section we have both agreed that two substantial themes are apparent. These are religion and the influence of growing up at a zoo on Pi, the main character. These two points are intertwined and are put in comparison multiple times. The book begins with background on Pi’s life before an unnamed tragedy takes place. During Pi’s childhood he is introduced to Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. All of which he is fascinated by and participates in each of their practices. Although these religions are very different and at times contradicting, Pi believes in all of them. He also relates religion to zoology, “I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion

1. Marvelous body of Richard Parker as both an image of God and a sign