Analysis Of Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

Life of Pi written by Yann Martel is categorized as a religion novel describes the incredible story of a young man Pi survives alone from the shipwreck for 227 days with the company of a Bengal Tiger Richard Park. Martel states at the beginning of his book that this is a book to convince people to believe in God (Martel, Life of Pi Author’s Note Xi). As the story of Pi is recognized by the world not only through the novel but also through the adapted movie, which was directed by Ang Lee and won many prices in The Oscars, Martel achieves his purpose in many different ways. People might not become religious right away, but the incredible stories and the way Martel presents it indeed makes people hard to not be amazed by the power of the invisible

It has won Governor General 's Literary Award for Fiction and Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction in 2001, Commonwealth Writers Prize and Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2002, and Boeke Prize in 2003("Writer: Yann Martel"). These prices are all affirmation to Life of Pi in literature. Lisa Jardine the chairwoman of the Booker states, "In Life of Pi, we have chosen an audacious book, in which inventiveness explores belief. It is, as the author says, 'a novel which will make you believe in God '--or ask yourself why you don 't." in her presentation speech (Cooper). The Booker Prize acknowledges that Life of Pi indeed makes people believe in God. There are also other similar compliments for Life of Pi all over the world. The Nation 's Charlotte Innes wrote, "If Canadian writer Yann Martel were a preacher, he 'd be charismatic, funny and convert all the nonbelievers; London Times reviewer Glyn Brown felt the story was "so magical, so playful, so harrowing and astonishing that it will make you believe imagination might be the first step [in believing in God]"; and in the London Daily Telegraph Toby Clements says, " Life of Pi ... is more a novel of proposition and conjecture, a series of narrative questions and solutions... a hilarious novel, full of clever tricks, amusing asides and grand originality("Yann Martel"). These three comments

Life of Pi was written in 2001, a time when postmodernism is a trend. The postmodernt elements and themes in the story includes, multiple narrators, a playful fairytale quality, realistically presented events, duplicate ending ("Yann Martel") religion, faith, survival, and man 's relationship with animals (Dominic). In the era of postmodernism, people feel normal when seeing two or more different elements combining in one thing. That gives them freedom to choose what they want to accept from the work, and might even increase their interest. As the result, the multiple elements in Life of Pi in some degree hides the real purpose of the author, make people believe in God, in all the other themes for those might fight against with religious thought and lead them the entrance of believing in something is not reasonable. It is the starting point of having faith and believing in God. The scientific components in the book are the best example of hiding the religious components. Martel 's background and experiences shows that he believe in both reason and faith. Even though he states clearly that his purpose is to make people believe in God, but in fact, Life of Pi makes people who ridicule faith and God believe in faith and God, and make people who deprecate reason and science admit the importance of reason and