Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

Words: 754
Pages: 4

Life of Pi by Yann Martel epitomizes the themes of twisting reality for understanding of personal beliefs. Throughout the novel, the main character, Pi, is stranded in extreme conditions of survival, and his faith is tested. The original story he tells is him on a lifeboat with a tiger, orangutan, hyena, and zebra. He is eventually alone with the tiger, Richard Parker, and when he tells his story, investigators do not believe him. He reiterates his story, replacing the zebra with a Taiwanese sailor, the orangutan with his mother, the hyena with a brutal cook, and Richard Parker with himself. It is up to the investigators to choose which story to believe, and they use the story with the animals in the report. It is not known for sure which story is the truth, but both versions exemplify the same message. Martel himself believes fiction is “the selective transforming of reality, the twisting of it to bring out its essence” (Martel). His work in Life of Pi truly captures his thoughts about reality and using different versions of it to send a clear message. Pi’s coping mechanism with loss is his creation of another story with animals, to help his mind …show more content…
The way Pi creates two parallel stories opens many eyes to see God. God cannot be seen but his power and influences on a person can be influential. A person can see God’s effects if they view them the way Pi sees his experience on the boat. There is the truth, and then there is the alternate truth that is a transformed reality, that a person can believe in rather than see. God is something to believe in, and the story with the animals is what Pi believes in. The story with the humans is what he actually sees, and so God is seen in the natural occurrence of the world. The entire novel circles around testing faith and ultimately, Pi uses his heart and beliefs rather than sight to tell about his miraculous