Symbolism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi

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‘Life of Pi’ is a complex and philosophical novel written by Yann Martel. It tells the story of a sixteen year old boy named Piscine Molitor Patel on board a lifeboat for 227 days with a hyena, orangutan, zebra and eventually, solely, a Bengal tiger, named Richard Parker. In Part 3 of the novel, however, Pi tells a second story of his ordeal, in which the animals from the first become metaphors for people who survived on the lifeboat with him, and Richard Parker becomes a metaphor for Pi’s savage side which emerges after the brutal beheading and murder of his mother so he can avenge her death and survive physically. Symbolism in very important in this novel as it allows Martel to fully explore his themes of survival, faith and the importance of storytelling. When Pi is recovering from his time at ea in a hospital I Mexico, two men from the Japanese Ministry o Transport come to interview him about the sinking of the ship, the Tsimtsum, and Pi tells them a different version of events in which we see all of the animals from the original story become symbolic representations of fellow castaways. Pi is angered by his interviewers’ inability to believe: ‘If you stumble upon mere believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?’ Pi is angered by his interviewers’ refusal to believe his first story. He argues that the things that make life worthwhile are in themselves miraculous. Just as love cannot be proven, it does not mean it does not exist. Just because something is ‘hard to believe’ does not make it untrue. Pi urges them to have faith in his first story. In Pi’s second st... ... middle of paper ... ...rds to highlight “the aside”. It is important and should not be looked over. Martel writes that he has a story ‘that will make you believe in God’. He successfully portrays why people choose to live a life with God. Because a life with God is the better story. Yet while the second telling of the story may cast doubt for the reader on the first story, it is not meant to do so for more than a moment. “And so it goes with God” is showing that whether God is real or not, living a life with God will always be better than one without faith. Even the highly skeptical Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba in the end choose to believe the first - the better story. That when we’re pushed to the ends of our physical and mental limits. That the belief in God is what gets us through this life. Works Cited Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

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