Yann Martel's Life of Pi

Life of Pi is a story full of adventure, animals and spiritual symbolism. It begins in the Indian town of Pondicherry. An anonymous author meets an elderly man named Francis Adirubasamy who tells him that he has a story that will make him believe in God. Although skeptical, the author is highly intrigued. The subject of the story is Pi Patel, who is now living in Toronto and the author discovers, willing to share his story.

Pi is named after a pool, the Piscine Molitor in Paris, France. As a child, he is the subject of ridicule because, at school, children turn the pronunciation into “pissing.” Soon the teachers are inadvertently pronouncing it wrong as well. His salvation comes when he enters a new private school. When the teacher calls on him to state his name, he instead goes to the chalkboard and writes his full name, underlining PI and comparing it to the mathematical symbol. The trick works and from that day forth he is called Pi instead of “pissing.”

Pi’s father opens a zoo in the local botanical gardens in 1954, and for Pi it is paradise. He says that although people think animals are better left in the wild, they are actually better cared for in the zoo. He says that people no longer favor zoos, stating that issues with freedom afflict both zoos and religion.

Pi says he was born a Hindu and will always consider himself Hindu. However, while vacationing at the age of fourteen, he comes across a Catholic church and becomes intrigued with the image of Christ on the cross. He cannot understand the idea that God would sacrifice his own Son for the sins of ordinary humans. The priest, Father Martin, explains to him that Christianity is about love. Pi decides to become a Christian and is told by the priest that he alre...

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...eginning, the author is told that it is a story which will make him believe in God. At first, one would draw the conclusion that the meaning of the story indicates that man fabricated the story of God because the real explanation of the universe was dull and unexciting. However, I think that it is quite the opposite. The stories of God and the Bible are somewhat elaborate and hard to imagine to the human mind so people are constantly searching for a more logical and reasonable explanation of the mysteries of the universe. When these answers are offered they sound a lot like the second story Pi tells: dull and lifeless. Although man sometimes wants to believe that there is a reasonable, scientific explanation for everything, in the end man prefers the unexplainable mystery of God.

Works Cited

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: a novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print.