Yann Martell’s novel, ‘Life of Pi’, is an intriguing, adventurous tale of a boy who survives almost a year at sea in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger

Mariah Foley
Staff Writer 

Yann Martell’s novel, ‘life of pi’, is an intriguing, adventurous tale of a boy who survives almost a year at sea in a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger.

Martel’s story is not just your average ‘Robinson Crusoe’ survival adventure.  The author claims it is a story that will make readers believe in God.

The book is split into three parts.  The first depicts the main character, Pi, as a teenage Indian boy, whose father owns a zoo.  Pi struggles with the idea of religion and attempts to balance three separate religions, claiming he just wants to love god. In the end of the first part, Pi’s family decides to transfer the zoo to somewhere more prosperous, as to make ends meet.

The second part, in his family’s attempt to sail out of the country, Pi’s ship is wrecked in a storm, and he is thrown onto a ship with some of the zoo animals, a hyena, an injured zebra, a mother orangutan, and a Bengal tiger.

Every animal on the lifeboat eventually dies, except for the tiger, Richard Parker.  Although Pi is scared of Richard Parker, he establishes dominance by acting like a zookeeper.  Richard Parker becomes Pi’s beloved companion throughout everything they go through.  Pi relies on his faith in God, not only to save him, but to keep him sane as well.

In the last part of the story, Pi and Richard Parker randomly wash up on the shores of Mexico.  Richard Parker runs away into the woods and Pi, on the verge of death, is found and taken to a hospital.  A few insurance investigators come to interview him, and Pi tells them the sum of his excursion into the sea with all the zoo animals.

Expectedly, the investigators don’t buy Pi’s story, and ask him to tell the truth. Pi retells the same exact story, except replacing all the animals. The injured zebra becomes an injured sailor, the hyena becomes the ship’s cook, the orangutan becomes Pi’s mother, and Richard Parker is a manifestation of Pi’s need for survival.  The story becomes incredibly depressing at this point in the book.

The author leaves it up to his readers to interpret the truth of Pi’s stories, whether the animal version or the human version is viable.  By doing this, he tries to get his main point across, that the truth doesn’t always have to be what happened, but what it means to the person it happened to.

Different versions of a story come from different understandings.  For example, Martell’s story could be an adventure of a teen boy braving the ocean with a tiger, or a tale of a boy whose family was murdered, and who had to betray his humanity and give in to his animalistic nature to survive.