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Economical and Political Influence of the Novel “Life of Pi”        

Life of Pi is set against the lawless period of Indian history known as the Emergency. In 1975, Prime Minister Gandhi was found guilty of charges related to her 1971 election campaign and was ordered to resign. Instead, Gandhi, in response to an intensifying strikes and protests against the government system, declared a state of emergency. During the period of Emergency, she suspended every constitutional right and gave herself an absolute power. The Emergency lasted for 18 months from September 1975 and was officially declared ending in March 1977, when Gandhi called for a new round of elections. The historical legacy of this even has been highly controversial. Many people in India, especially Gandhi’s political opponents were jailed, abused, and tortured. By the end of Emergency, India’s economy experienced a much-needed stabilization and growth. In Life of Pi, the protagonist Pi Molitor Patel’s father, a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India, grew anxious about the current political situation. Simultaneously, faced with the depressing economic conditions, Pi’s father decided to sell off his zoo and animals and move his family to Canada. Consequently, the economical and political circumstances at the time in India set the main action of the novel into motion.

Symbols

Some symbols in Life of Pi include: the mathematical symbol and the protagonist’s nickname Pi (~3.14), and the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker.

Although the protagonist’s real name is Piscine Molitor Patel, he created and told others his new nickname on the first day in secondary school. Because Pi was tired of others mispronouncing his name as “Pissing Molitor Patel” he shortened his first name to Pi, instead of Piscine. The word Pi carries a series of significant associations throughout the novel. In terms of mathematical symbol, Pi is a letter in the Greek alphabet p, which also contains the meaning alpha and omega. Generally, these two terms signify independence and endurance. Pi is also an irrational mathematical number associating with circles. Often shortened to 3.14, Pi has many decimal places that we can’t accurately grasp it. In Life of Pi, the author Martel implies that some realities are too difficult or too troubling to face. The associations with the mathematical symbol p and the events in Life of Pi establish the character Pi Patel with multiple layers of meaning.

The Royal Bengal tiger Richard Parker symbolizes Pi’s most animalistic instincts. Out on the lifeboat, Pi must perform many actions to stay alive that he would have found unimaginable in his normal life. He abandoned vegetarian life style and had to kill fish to sustain his life. As the time progressed, Pi became more ruthless about killing, tearing apart birds and greedily stuffing them in his mouth, the way Richard Parker did.