If you have not read or seen
Life of Pi, I highly suggest you do so before reading this analysis. I don’t want to spoil it! Also, it is important to remember that
Life of Pi is a fictional story, so as to not get over-invested in fact-checking and critical analysis.
Last night my sister and I watched the film
Life of Pi for
the first time and were overwhelmingly impressed with how well it was
done and how meaningful it was! Now I’m dying to read the book! I really
enjoy books and movies that don’t just entertain me, but really
captivate my thoughts and make me contemplate things I would not
normally think of. Challenges are opportunities to become wiser!
{My younger sister(left) and I enjoying our “Pi night”}
There were many intriguing topics within
Life of Pi, but there were a few specific ones that seemed to jump out at me.
First of all, what really happened?
Obviously, some parts of Pi’s animal story were very illogical and
cannot be backed by scientific evidence. Everything made sense up until
the point at which Pi discovers the “Carnivorous island”, which
resembles a large mangrove. The island is bountiful with plenty of food
and water in the daytime, not to mention the millions of meerkats, but
at night the pools of clean water become “acidic” and kills all of its
inhabitants (the fish). Pi watches this reaction from a tree and
subsequently notices a human tooth in what looks to be a plant similar
to a lotus flower. This reminded what was said in Pi’s encounter with
his first crush, Anandi:
“Pi Patel: None of the others dancers did that. What did you mean? The God of love is hiding in the forest?
Anandi: No, that also means the Lotus flower.
Pi Patel: Lotus flower is hiding in the forest? Why would a Lotus flower hide in the forest?”
Why would a lotus flower hide in the forest? The keyword here is
“hide”. A lotus flower is beautiful and desirable, something one would
desire to seek. What the flower contains though, the tooth, represents
death. This could be easily linked with the way sin operates. It is
beautiful and desirable, and people go out of their way to seek it.
Eventually though, seeking sin will result in death, eternal death. God
reveals to Pi what is inside the beautiful lotus flower in order warn Pi
that what seemed to be a perfect oasis was actually a death trap, as it
is with sin. One important thing to notice is the shape of the island,
which at a distance resembles a body, in an eerie sarcophagus form.
This leads me to my second assumption. When Pi tells his second story
to the Japanese company, he tells it with such emotion and detail.
Either Pi is a really good liar, or his second story is the truth while
his entire first animal story was a metaphor for the things that
actually happened. Of course, Pi says,“So tell me, since it makes no
factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way,
which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with
animals or the story without animals?”
I would prefer to believe the animal story. It sounds much more
desirable, much cleaner, and much less barbaric. Unfortunately, I think
that it is much more likely to be a metaphor. The monkey represented
Pi’s mom, the zebra represented an Oriental sailor, the hyena
represented the strange cook, and the tiger represented Pi.
The Japanese sailor injured his leg from jumping into the lifeboat.
After a while, the cook feared for supplies and killed the man as Pi and
his mom held the man down. Pi recalls, “So… I kept saying, ‘I’m sorry,
I’m sorry’, but he just kept.. looking at me, his eyes so… I’ll never
understand the point of that man’s suffering.” The cook used pieces of
the man’s body as bait to catch a dorado, which angered Pi’s mom. The
next day, Pi accidentally dropped a turtle that the cook had caught and
was slapped across the face. This angered Pi’s mom even more, and she
attempted to hit and punch the cook. Pi watched as the cook killed his
mom with a knife and threw her overboard to the sharks. A short time
later, Pi took the knife and killed the cook. He used the cook’s flesh
as fish bait, doing to him what had been done to the sailor (meaning
possible cannibalism). Pi says, “He was such an evil man, but worse
still, he brought the evil out in me.”
Relating back to the carnivorous island, the shape of the island (a body) has a new significance. I read from one blogger,
beerdoggler,
“The island (cook) is teeming with life. The thousands of meercats
represent the life-giving flesh of the island. But we see it’s shape is
that of a sarcophagus, or mummy, or dead man … the cook. Pi eats the
roots and seeds while Richard Parker eats the flesh of the island.” This
may indicate that though killing the cook seemed like the right thing
to do, Pi still feels guilty about indulging himself on something that
he knows to be morally wrong – murder. He knows he has to move on from
that place or he will eventually go insane. Another theory is that the
island represents Pi’s view of life after he killed the cook.
One more thing about the island. I was intrigued that Yann Martel
could make up such a place, so I did a little research. Apparently, the
closest thing to what Martel describes is a small island in the
Tyrrhenian Sea near Naples called Castello Aragonese. According to
theepochtimes.com,
“bubbles of carbon dioxide rise from volcanic vents on the seafloor and
dissolve to form high concentrations of carbonic acid that make
seawater corrosive. Like the floating island Pi and Richard Parker
discover, the island of Castello Aragonese creates beds of vivid green
sea grass and sustains swarms of translucent jellyfish and algae. Yet no
other life survives in its waters.”
As far as the relation to religion goes, Pi states that there are 330
million God’s in the Hindu religion, the primary religion in India,
followed by Islam and Christianity. One blogger,
A. K. K. , proposes that many aspects of the story seem to represent several different Indian philosophical concepts.
“1. Metaphor: The island floating on the Pacific ocean.
Meaning:
Vishnu, floating on the cosmic ocean (this imagery was shown at the beginning of the story).
2. Metaphor: The seemingly surreal happenings on the island.
Meaning: Our reality, which is a “dream” in the mind of Vishnu (this was also mentioned at the beginning of the story).
3. Metaphor: The carnivorous algae on which the island floats.
Meaning:
Sesha, the five-headed snake on which Vishnu rests.
4. Metaphor: The numerous meerkats.
Meaning: Human beings. I know, what an unflattering metaphor! Possibly,
they were chosen for their semi-bipedalism, semi-intelligence, social
living, or some combination of similar reasons.
5. Metaphor: The island supports life by day, and causes death by night, again and again.
Meaning:
Samsara, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth – that which supports life, causes death, and that which causes death, supports life.
6. Metaphor: The meerkats live meaningless lives eating, running, and
dying on the island, under the impression that this is all there is to
reality.
Meaning:
Maya /
Avidya,
the illusion about the false nature of reality, which ultimately arises
due to ignorance, and causes people to be stuck in Samsara.
7. Metaphor: Pi realizes the true nature of the island, and recognizes its futility.
Meaning:
Vidya /
Sat /
Chit, knowledge or consciousness of the ultimate truth, which dispels Maya, and enables one to achieve enlightenment and liberation.
8. Metaphor: Pi, recognizing the truth of the island, decides to leave it for good.
Meaning:
Moksha /
Nirvana, the ultimate liberation of one’s self from Samsara, so as to attain union with Vishnu (in
Vaishnavism, a monotheistic Hindu religion), or union with God (in
Sikhism, another monotheistic Hindu religion), or attain supreme character (in
Jainism, an atheistic Hindu religion), or to attain supreme serenity (in
Buddhism, another atheistic Hindu religion), or union with the supreme oneness (in
Advaita Vedantism/Smartism, a monistic Hindu religion). This constitutes the
soteriology of the major Hindu/Indian religions.”
There were many Christian principles that stuck out to me as well. In
recalling the book’s version of Pi’s detailed account of the
carnivorous island, he says, “
My foot sank into the clear water and
met the rubbery resistance of something flexible but solid. I put more
weight down. The illusion would not give. I put the full weight of my
foot. Still I did not sink. Still I did not believe.”
Shmoop.com
points out, “Doesn’t that sound like “Doubting” Thomas from the New
Testament touching Christ’s wounds in order to believe that he was
resurrected from the dead? Or Saint Peter trying to walk on water after
he sees Jesus do it?
But maybe the island doesn’t represent the type of faith Martel
thinks we should have. Because, of course, the algae turns out to be
man-eating algae. It’s an island that can consume you if you’re not
careful. Meaning, if you appease yourself with physical comfort – all
the food and drink you want – it turns into a type of spiritual death.
If your faith is too easy and you no longer brave the stormy seas, then you’re no longer experiencing real faith.
Notice too that Pi really tames Richard Parker on the island. He has
him jumping through hoops. Literally. Richard Parker, like the ocean, is
part of Pi’s spiritual trial. What do you do when your spiritual test
(a.k.a. Richard Parker) follows your every command? You leave:
By the time morning came, my grim decision was taken. I preferred
to set off and perish in search of my own kind than to live a lonely
half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous
island.“
Hope this wasn’t a dull read, I understand that it is long! If you
have any intriguing thoughts you would like to add, please comment! I
love thinking about new ideas!
-Jordan
