Life Of Pi And Religion

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

Though Martel only briefly mentions him in the first chapter of Life of Pi, Luria’s philosophy has an important underlying role in the theme of faith and logic. Luria’s basic ideology revolves around a circle, in which the number pi plays a critical part. Charlotte Innes says in her article “Robinson Crusoe, Move Over”:

Luria believed that God’s light contracted from the center of the universe, purging itself of evil elements, leaving an empty space (a circle) in which human life developed. But God also sent down a ray of light (like a radius) so that the few remaining divine sparks could reconnect with Him. To achieve this fusion with God, and by implication eliminate evil from the world, Luria believed people must live an ethical life. This basic contractual agreement is known as Tsimtsum, which is also the name of the Japanese ship that sinks in the Patel’s voyage to Canada. In other words, this “fusion with God” disappears when the Tsimtsum sinks - leaving Pi in a possible faithless vacuum at sea. Pi could choose to abandon his faith in God because of the devastation he endures with the sinking of the Tsimtsum; however, he chooses to persevere despite the void of ceaseless ocean that surrounds

Without a steady balance of both of these, it is extremely likely that Pi would not have survived his hardships. In his article “Feeding Tiger, Finding God: Science, Religion, and ‘the Better Story’ in Life of Pi,” Gregory Stephens mentions that Martel “calls attention not only to the inspiration he has received from religion and science, but to the blind spots, and indeed the foolishness, that one sometimes encounters in each.” In other words, not having a balanced relationship with both might lead a person to make foolish mistakes. Pi’s experience in the Pondicherry Zoo prepares him with the knowledge needed to reside on the lifeboat in the presence of a tiger, hyena, zebra, and orangoutang. However, it is Pi’s first instinct to rely on his spiritual imagination when the Tsimtsum sinks and Pi first encounters Richard Parker. Pi says, “had [he] considered [his] prospects in the light of reason, [he] surely would have given up and let go of the oar, hoping that [he] might drown before being eaten” (Martel 107). It is only because of his faith that he successfully escaped the capsizing ship and embarked on his expedition in the