Intro to Life of Pi

Lecture Notes
• About the Author
• Faith
o Christianity
o Islam
o Hinduism
• Truth
• Bildungsroman

About the Author

By now you know that Life of Pi is a novel written by Canadian author Yann Martel.
Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. He grew up in Alaska,
British Columbia, Costa Rica, France, Ontario and Mexico, and has continued travelling
as an adult, spending time in Iran, Turkey and India. After studying philosophy at Trent
University and while doing various odd jobs — tree planting, dishwashing, working as a
security guard — he began to write. He has been living from his writing since the age of
27. He divides his time between yoga, writing and volunteering in a palliative care unit.
Yann Martel lives in Montreal.

Faith

The nature of faith is one of the central ideas of Life of Pi. The novel begins with an old
man in Pondicherry who tells the author, “I have a story that will make you believe in
God.” The young Pi is a devotee of three religions, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism.

Christianity: The world’s largest religion with 1.5-2.1 billion adherents. Began as a sect
of Judaism based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New
Testament. Christians believe that Jesus is the son of God. He suffered and died from
crucifixion and was resurrected to open heaven for those who believed in him and trust
him to forgive their sins.

Islam: World’s second-largest religion

Holy text is the Qur’an which is considered to be the verbatim word of God or Allah.
Muslims regard their religion as the completed and universal version of a monotheistic
faith revealed in many times and places before to prophets Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.
Founder of the faith is the prophet Muhammad.
Five Pillars of Islam:
1) profession of faith
2) prayers
3) giving to the poor
4) fasting during Ramadan
5) The Hajj- pilgrimage to Mecca.
Hinduism: The word’s third largest religion with approximately 1 billion adherents.
Does not have a single founder but consists of thousands of different religious groups that
evolved in India since 1500 BCE. Often called oldest living religion. Most forms of
Hinduism recognize a single deity and view other gods and goddesses as manifestations
of that supreme deity. Some view Hinduism as being Some view Hinduism as Trinitarian
because the supreme deity is seen as one God with three persons:

* Brahma the Creator who is continuing to create new realities

* Vishnu, (Krishna) the Preserver, who preserves these new creations. Whenever
dharma (eternal order, righteousness, religion, law and duty) is threatened, Vishnu travels
from heaven to earth in one of ten incarnations.
* Shiva, the Destroyer, is at times compassionate, erotic and destructive.

Prominent Themes:
Dharma: ethical duties
Samsara: continuing cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth which you can eventually
escape through enlightenment
Karma: action and subsequent action.

Krishna is considered to be an incarnation of Vishnu, and his life has certain parallels to
Christ’s.

To Pi, faith is a form of certainty. He dislikes agnostics because they refrain from a
definitive judgement. Pi admires atheists because at least they have faith in something.
He does not want to choose a religion. He only wants to love God.

The Nature of Truth

Life of Pi is a story within a story. The novel is framed from a note from the fictional
author, who narrates how he first came to hear the tale of Piscine Molitor Patel. Then we
shift to Pi’s narration of events, and end with a transcription of an interview. The
Japanese interviewers do not believe Pi’s story so he tells them another version and then
asks which one they like better.

Pi asks the interviewers what it is about the first story they don’t believe. Each individual
element, however unlikely, seems possible.

Martel forces the reader to examine the difference between factual truth and metaphoric
truth. While one story might be factually true, both versions of Pi’s story contain a kind
of truth. Throughout the story Pi shows contempt for rationalists who trust only “dry,
yeastless factuality.” Stories, Pi asserts are likely to be remembered far longer than mere
factual accounts and have the power to be emotionally evocative.
The Bildungsroman

A bildungsroman is a type of novel that tells the story of the spiritual, moral, and
psychological or social development of the protagonist either from childhood to
adulthood or innocence to experience. Bildungsromans usually contain most or all of the
following elements:

• Protagonist grows from boy to man or girl to woman—if not literally than emotionally
or psychologically
• Protagonist must have some reason to go on this journey of self discovery—exile or
escape
• The growth process is long and grueling and involves repeated clashes between the
needs and desires of protagonist and demands of society. Similar to Freud’s conflict
between id and superego.
• Eventually as protagonist matures, he or she comes to recognize the appropriateness of
the society’s values and he or she is assimilated into it. The major conflict is self vs
society or conformity
• Novel ends with protagonist evaluating himself or herself and his or her new place in
society