The
story Life of Pi has two major themes
that are: the desire to live and religion. The novel is a story about a boy nicknamed Pi struggling to survive through
challenging situations and seemingly insurmountable odds.
The
shipwrecked inhabitants of the little lifeboat don't simply accept their fate,
but actively fight against it. Within Pi’s 277 days of disaster, he abandons
his life-long vegetarianism and eats fish to sustain himself. All the animals,
even the severely wounded zebra battles to stay alive. Their slow, painful
struggles vividly illustrate the sheer strength of living creatures’ life
force. The author makes the point that every living creature has an inborn
desire and willingness to live and nobody would easily give up his/her own life.
In Life of Pi, the survivors from the
tragic sinking of the ship often do extraordinary, unexpected and sometimes
heroic things to survive. Contrariwise, they would also accomplish shameful and
vicious things if pressed. At the end of the novel, Pi raises the possibility
that the fierce tiger, Richard Parker, is actually the aspect of his own
personality, and that Pi himself is responsible for some of the horrific events
that he has narrated, including killing and sacrificing his own family for
survival, it is revealed that anything could be accomplished in a life-or-death
situation.
This
story begins with an old man in Pondicherry telling the narrator, “I have a story that will make you believe in
God.” Storytelling and religious belief are two closely linked ideas in the
novel. Life of Pi contains a story
within a different story. In these separate stories, Pi’s three religions,
Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, also come with its own set of tales. In Life of Pi, the nature of religion is
used to spread the teachings and illustrate the beliefs of the faith – the
faith that Pi will face as the plot progresses. Pi enjoys religious tales, but
he also senses that each of these fables might simply be parts of a greater,
universal story about love. Surprisingly for such a religious boy, Pi admires
atheists. To him, the significant thing is to believe in something, and Pi can appreciate the atheists’ abilities to believe
in the absence of God with no concrete proof of that absence.
(382 words)
Although I have watched the movie, I did not reflect upon such subject this deeply. It now seems to me that only words, instead of vision, can move a person and provide deep thinking. After reading your post, I realized the plethora of material I skirted while watching a movie. :o I decide to read the novel in order to compensate for the missing information.
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