Pi Patel in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is a young Indian boy who is put through a tremendous traumatic experience; he gets lost at sea! Not only does he lose all his family, but he is forced to survive 227 days at sea with very limited resources. This ordeal causes great psychological pressure on Pi and causes his mind to find ways to cope with all the stress. When asked to describe what happened, Pi tells two stories: one with him surviving with animals including an adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and a parallel story with humans in which Pi is forced to bend morality. Pi’s story of his survival with Richard Parker is a fiction that he creates to cope with a reality that is too difficult to face.
In the Novel “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel talks about a character name Pisine Molitar and how he debts which religion is right for him.In the novel's faith plays a significant role in shaping Pi’s personality, its significance of Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam.
Despite not agreeing with his biology teacher, Mr. Kumar’s beliefs, as he stated “There are no grounds for going beyond a scientific explanation of reality and no sound reason for believing anything but our sense experience.” (Life or Pi, p.34.), and “religion is darkness” (Life of Pi, pg.34.), Pi stated that Mr. Kumar went on to become his favorite teacher and the reason he studied zoology. Kumar was a critical person in his life that enabled Pi to see life through a different lense. He impacted Pi in a another, more abstract way. Mr. Kumar represents Pi’s logical aspect, which in the end impacts Pi in life saving way. Adding logic and reason to Pi’s spiritual wheel empowered him to solve problems that came his way on the lifeboat, and also taught him to develop a relationship with someone who thinks noticeably different than him. Pi’s view on truth and belief is consummated as Pi tells the story in the concluding portion of the novel. Each version contains a different genus of truth. As one story is supported by facts, and the other has an emotional truth that cannot be proven right nor wrong. This moment culminates Pi’s outlook on the concept of truth and the way he relates it to his spiritual aspect of his
Pi follows more than one religion, and through his journey he explores and meets numerous animals. These animals that he runs into are all signs of god. They are all religious beliefs and that’s what gives Pi Patel the strength to survive and stay alive on the ocean. The novel explains and illustrates the importance of keeping faith and how religion plays a crucial role in human lives. God is within everyone, and in the book Life of Pi, having and keeping with in god it can conclusively give you a sense of hope, survival, and accomplishment. It is the person’s choice whether or not to believe in
After being afloat the life boat with Pi yelling out to all of the Religious leader in which he believes shows that he has not lost his faith in any religion despite of what he’s facing, Pi goes through a somewhat “oceanic” feeling.
The only possible way to survive a 227-day odyssey on a lifeboat with a tiger, hyena, orangoutang, and a zebra is to maintain an ideal balance of faith and reason. Yann Martel dissects this balance in his novel, Life of Pi. Throughout the exhausting journey of a young man named Piscine Molitor Patel, Martel tactfully displays the importance of God in a world that focuses on reality and rationality. In doing so, he provides justification to questions like: “Why can’t reason give greater answers? Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in an answer? Why such a vast net if there’s so little fish to catch?” (Martel 98) Though Martel is a “secular writer with sympathies for the religious imagination,” the incredible Life of Pi encourages
How does religion benefit your life when you are going through hard times? Religion is a particular system of worship or belief. The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, is about a sixteen year old boy, named Pi Patel, who lives in an Indian city called Pondicherry. From Pondicherry he goes on many adventures and ends up in Manilla. He survives through my different tragic events including months in a lifeboat with a tiger and being surrounded by sharks in a tiny lifeboat. Pi uses the three religions Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam to survive his ordeal at the sea.
In the beginning of the book, Pi has a strong love and a deep belief in God. Later in the book, but in this chapter Pi begins to doubt God. After Pi has been floating in the lifeboat for about a week, he is experiencing extreme hunger, blisters, swollen ankles and great physical suffering. Then
His belief was what kept him grounded in his time of despair and hopelessness, helping him to push through and continue to survive. While on the lifeboat while Pi did sometimes put his faith and beliefs on the backburner, he did always come back to them. Such as when his food began to run out he had to kill a fish. The first time he killed a fish he was in a state of hysteria. His emotions ran rampant, not only having to kill a living thing but eat it as well did not come easily to the vegetarian Pi. He said, “I was sixteen years old, a harmless boy, bookish and religious, and now I had blood on my hands. It’s a terrible burden to carry” (183). However, as time went on and the boy became more desperate, he killed easily and clinically, without hesitation and only thinking of his survival. He says, “I stuck finger into eyes, jammed hands into gills, crushed soft stomachs with knees, bit tails with my teeth--I did whatever necessary to hold a fish down until I could reach for the hatchet to chop its head off” (195). Even though at times Pi had to give up some of his beliefs to survive at the time, he never truly gave up. He always came back to
In drastic situations, human psychology uses coping mechanisms to help them through it. In the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi’s coping mechanism is his religions and his projection of Richard Parker. Martel’s Life of Pi shows how the projection of Richard Parker played a greater role in keeping Pi alive in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. During the period in which Pi was stranded on the lifeboat, Richard Parker kept Pi aware, helped Pi make the right decisions, and was Pi’s sub-consciousness.
Pi maintains his religious beliefs while on the life boat through his daily prayers. He takes time aside each day to say the prayers that he always would say. In one instance, he turns where he believes Mecca is located, and prays his traditional prayers towards Mecca. Pi also often states that he will include specific animals in his prayers, such as the zebra aboard his lifeboat, and the first fish that he ever killed. With Pi keeping his ritual prayers going, it helped him to survive.
Religion is and always has been a sensitive topic. Some choose to acknowledge that there is a God and some choose to deny this fact to the death. For those who deny the presence of a higher being, “Life of Pi” will most likely change your thought process concerning this issue. Yann Martel’s, “Life of Pi”, is a compelling story that shows the importance of obtaining religion and faith. Piscine (Pi) Patel is both the protagonist and the narrator of Martell’s religious eye-opener who undergoes a chain effect of unbelievable catastrophes. Each of these catastrophic events leaving him religiously stronger because he knows that in order to endure what he has endured, there has got to be a God somewhere.
Pi is an indian, but except Hinduism, he also believes in Christianity and Islam. It is pretty unusual. However, these three religions save his life when he meets storm on the sea. Religion is a key component in Pi’s survival because it lets him understand that he has to coexist with other creatures, it leads Pi to accept that even if he did not survive he would be redeemed, and it gives Pi the hope for survival.
The novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, talks about a sixteen-year old man named Pi Patel, who unbelievably survives a dreadful shipwreck after 227 days with the animals in a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. Different ideas and themes in the book can be found in which the readers can gain an understanding about. The author communicated to the reader by using an ample amount of symbolisms to talk about the themes. The main themes of this novel are religion and faith. His religion and him being faithful have helped him throughout the journey, and this eventually led to an incredible precedent. The author left the reader thinking about how religion and faith can have an impact in our lives positively. Religion can affect our choices in life, and faith
“When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.” This excerpt by Austrian psychologist and Holocaust Survivor Viktor E. Frankl describes the very essence of the Life of Pi. Piscine Molitor Patel is burdened with this idea of change and, as a result, is forced to completely alter his way of life. He adopts a new religion of survival; one with no limits or boundaries, only desperation to prosper. Pi undergoes a transformation that mimics a religious conversion to savagery during his time in unintended exile.