Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

According to Arthur Tugman, “The moral of a story is better guessed than falsely expressed”. The moral of Life of Pi by Yann Martel is to help people believe in things greater, higher and different than factual things. The author tries to achieve this goal by exceptional storytelling, which becomes the most important aspect of the novel because the reader is given a choice between two stories. While talking about those who rely fully on reason, Pi, the protagonist, accuses that they “lack imagination and miss the better story” (70). This claim warns the reader not to dismiss an improbable story as impossible. It is not only a “better” story but the true story as well because it shows that faith is the ultimate savior; it can be related back to Pi’s life in India and Pi was forced to make up the human story to the Japanese officials.

To begin with, the animal story is the true story because it shows how Pi’s faith in religions and God helped him survive the tough circumstances on the lifeboat. Martel dexterously prepares the reader for the seafaring section in the first part of the book, which describes Pi’s sunny childhood in the Pondicherry zoo and his triple conversion to Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. Pi’s faith in god helped him survive on the boat. Pi started to become animal like in a way that he has to give up his vegetarianism and learn to fish. Hi encounter with the vast sea can be read as an encounter with the numinous. Pi does see the immensity of the sea and sky as divine. He calls the thunderbolt a ‘miracle’ and ‘an outbreak of divinity’, praising Allah. In moments of desolation, he tries to seek comfort in the divinity of that which is around him, ”I would point to the lifeboat and say aloud, “THIS IS GOD’S ARK!”...

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...y. You never need time to tell a true story, it just comes to the mind straight up.

To conclude, The first story borders on religious allegory, odd and beautiful and uplifting; the second story "won't make you see higher or further or differently," as Pi notes, and smacks of the "dry, yeast-less factuality" so often sought in the sciences. Readers come to the author's grand message, and the business end of Mr. Adirubasamy's assertion that the tale would cause the reader to believe in God. Is the "better story" one that expands your mind, heart, and spirit (think religion), or one that merely confirms what you have already guessed (think science)? Both require equal amounts of faith. The true story however will still be the animal one because it relates to Pi the most, it establishes the importance of faith and clearly, that the human story was a forced action.