“Faith in God is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was so

hard to love. Sometimes my heart was sinking so fast with anger, desolation and weariness, I was
afraid it would sink to the very bottom of the Pacific and I would not be able to lift it back up.” This
cliché from the book Life of Pi written by Yann Martel has a profound meaning about our faith in
God. There are times that people tend to lose hope and at the same time, they also tend to lose
their faith. People stop believing in the existence of God because of human suffering. We have this
notion that if God really exist, we will not be able to experience pain and suffering because we
expect that God is always there to protect us as His creation. On the other hand, during those times
that we experience pleasure and happiness, we now tend to forget that behind all of these is God’s
love for us. We oftentimes forget to give thanks to Him for the blessings and success we have
received. In contrast, with pain and losing, we think that it is God’s punishment and a sign of
abandonment.

In Pi Patel’s story, we could see that he is a man of many faiths considering that he believes in three
religions – Islam, Christianity and Hinduism. These three religions helped him survive the tragedies
he experienced during his journey in the Pacific Ocean. He was unsure whether he could still live or
not but this doubt and uncertainty made him sure of one thing – God was always the shining point of
light in his heart which made him continue loving.

In this novel, Pi also explores different religions though he was born a Hindu. The first religion that
he discovered was Christianity where he became skeptical about what kind of God do Christians
worship because he saw that the son of God was sacrificed and made P a g e | 9 to suffer for the
sake of other people. With Father Martin’s stories, Pi came to love Christianity. After this, Pi also
discovered Islam faith from Mr. Kumar, his teacher because it is a religion of brotherhood and
devotion. Pi decides that he cannot choose between these religions. Hence he followed the
teachings of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam with much ease and synchronicity.

In a straight reading of the novel, the second story is what really happened while the first story is
invented by Pi to deal with his trauma. the Japanese investigators, in spite of first demanding to hear
“the straight facts” and not an invention (Martel 302), change their minds when they are confronted
with the story about cannibalism. In the end they choose to report the less plausible but (from an
anthropocentric perspective) also less gruesome first story as what actually took place.

Pi’s moral values have been violated through his actions and while he can justify them as necessary
for his survival, he cannot accept them. The traumatic experience which tears down his moral
barriers also lead to Pi’s invention of the tiger as a vessel for his unacceptable traits. When the tiger
leaves him without acknowledging the end of their relationship, it is implied that the relationship
does not end and through his dreams the tiger remains part of his life, as it must, until his internal
conflict is resolved.
When Pi says, “we look at an animal and see a mirror” (31), he acknowledges the connection
between human and nonhuman animals. “The obsession with putting ourselves at the center of
everything is the bane not only of theologians but also of zoologists” (31). Like his father, the
zookeeper, Pi believes that “the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.” His father painted this as a
question on the wall next to the ticket booth, with an arrow pointing to a mirror. The animals in the
first story share so many traits with the humans in the second story. Through the story, Pi gradually
becomes more like the nonhuman animals as his survival instincts forces him to adapt. He says,
“hunger can change everything you ever thought you knew about yourself”

In Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, the narrator and protagonist Pi is placed in a life or death situation
which tests his faith and morality. In the story, Pi is a young man who believes in three religions:
Christianity, Judaism and Islam. From these religions he has developed a deep sense of morality and
a kindness towards all living things (Durden, 2012). However, during his journey in the Pacific Ocean,
he has to give up this morality. He needs to kill living creatures in order to survive.

While interpretation of this story is left open to the reader, one theory interprets the animals as a
defense mechanism used by Pi in order to survive the conditions of being lost at sea while preserving
his sense of morality. I

The novel Life of Pi written by Yann Martel involves faith and religion as part of its major themes. It
highlights Hindu, Christianity and Islam as the main character, Pi Patel, identifies himself in these
three different religions. He practices all the routines and rituals he learned from the imam, the
priest and the pandit. They argued that it is impossible for Pi Patel to believe in three religions.
However, when he was asked to choose one, he told them that all he wanted was to love God. The
religious leaders as well as his parents gave in to what Pi requested. Thus, he continued his life as a
Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim at the same time.

Martel has said that Life of Pi can be summarized in three statements:

"Life is a story"; "You can choose your story"; "A story with God is
the better story".

“It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me
witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say even wholeness.”
Pi’s moral values have been violated through his actions and while he can justify them as necessary
for his survival, he cannot accept them. The traumatic experience therefore serves to tear down
moral barriers and this leads to the invention of the tiger as a carrier of the unacceptable traits7 in
Pi’s own personality. Pi more or less acknowledges this as he, much later, explains how the tiger
haunts his dreams: “Richard Parker has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss
him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares
tinged with love”

Accidental cannibalism is a common occurrence during the excitement of a feeding; in reaching for a
bite of zebra, a hyena will take in the ear or nostril of a clan member, no hard feelings intended. The
hyena feels no disgust at this mistake.

“He killed her. The cook killed my mother”

“Tastes like pork”

“All the papers we received with the cub clearly stated that its name was Richard Parker, that the
hunter’s first name was Thirsty and that his family name was None Given”

Pi’s father, the zookeeper, never changed the tigers’ name since he “had a good chuckle over the
mix-up”

At the end of the jungle, he stopped. I was certain he would turn my way. He would look at me. He
would flatten his ears. He would growl. In some such way, he would conclude our relationship. He
did nothing of that sort. He only looked fixedly into the jungle. Then Richard Parker, companion of
my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my
life. (284-285) The tiger functions as a lifeline to Pi’s sanity, but also as a mirror to his dark side (he
calls him torment, awful), as he is constantly forced to confront himself with what he could become.

“Richard Parker seems to symbolize God to Pi: in his might, his majesty and his remoteness”

Through the story, Pi gradually becomes more like the nonhuman animals as his survival instincts
forces him to adapt. He says, “hunger can change everything you ever thought you knew about
yourself”

Piscine Molitor-was the name of a famous Paris swimming pool, “the crowning aquatic glory…of the
entire civilized world”

The new Pondicherry zoo, owned by Pi’s father, was “designed and run according to the most
modern, biologically sound principles”

As a zookeeper, Pi’s father is a go-between, a mediator between those in his care and the public
visiting the garden. Being very conscious of the divide between animals and people and of the risks
of anthropomorphism, he warns Pi that the most dangerous animal is “the animal as seen through
human eyes,” that is the humanized animal that emerges when “we look at an animal and see a
mirror”
“the lifeboat was resembling a zoo enclosure more and more”

As he attempts to eat the tiger’s feces in order to suppress hunger, he begins to feel that “no doubt
[he] will be considered to have abandoned the last vestiges of humanness by those who do not
understand the degree of [his] suffering” (237).

“we were two emaciated mammals, parched and starving”

Father had painted on a wall in bright red letters the question: DO YOU
KNOW WHICH IS THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMAL IN THE ZOO? An
arrow pointed to a small curtain. There were so many eager, curious hands
that pulled at the curtain that we had to replace it regularly. Behind it was a
mirror.

Richard Parker is anthropomorphized several times throughout the novel, including being given
a human name.  . Some of the main and most predominant examples of anthropomorphism in
the novel include: Pi’s description of the animals’ behavior, Pi’s description of his environment,
and Pi’s comparison of the animals to people he knows. In this novel, Pi often describes animals
as behaving like humans.  An example of Pi anthropomorphizing animals is when he first
encounters a sea turtle while aboard the lifeboat.  He anthropomorphizes the turtle by depicting
the turtle’s facial expression as “haughty and severe, like that of an ill-tempered old man who
has complaining on his mind”. he also remarks that Orange Juice, the orang-utan, was “bearing
an expression profoundly sad and mournful.”  Pi goes on interpreting the facial expressions or
posture of an animal as representing a human emotion.  All these remarks are examples of
giving human-like qualities to the animals.

The use of anthropomorphism in “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel is almost endless once Pi
leaves normal society. With a potentially dangerous tiger as his only companion (aside from
God) Pi and the tiger almost trade places. While the tiger is always thought to be the savage
one, it is actually Pi who turns to savagery for survival. This is almost like a case of double
anthropomorphism since Pi attributes human characteristics on the tiger while at the same
thinks of himself in animal terms. At one point, after killing fish and other ocean creatures to
survive, Pi remarks on this anthropomorphic reversal in one of the more important quotes in
‘Life of Pi” by Yann Martel, “It became an unmistakable indication to me of how low I had
sunk the day I noticed—with a pinching of the heart—that I ate like an animal. That this
noisy-frantic-unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate"

The first time we hear of Richard Parker, Pi laments: “I still cannot understand how he could
abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once”

The main part of the story takes place in the 1970’s where sixteen-
year old Pi and his family become shipwrecked on their move from
India to Canada. The boy is the only human survivor and he finds
himself aboard a lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a hyena, an orang-
utan, and a tiger with a human name. “I awoke to the reality of
Richard Parker.”
Throughout this novel, Pi is forced to witness the animals’
carnivorous nature as it kills the other animals. When Pi arrives at the
coast of Mexico, the story of his survival is rejected as it seems unreal
and he is asked by Japanese investigators to give a more believable
version of the story. He then tells them a version of a story, which
replaces the animals of the first story with humans. Just like the
animals in the first story, the second version pictures humans killing
and eating each other to survive. This second version of the story
seems to be more horrible and also at the same time more possible.
The two stories share the same beginning, the ship leaving India, and
the same ending, the only survivor, Pi, as the only witness to what
really happened.

"Isn't it ironic, Richard Parker? We're in hell yet still we're afraid of
immortality." the falling action is when pi's boat went to shore in mexico and the
man found him. "god of course, i wasn't. this beach, so soft, firm and vast, was like
the cheek of god, and somewhere two eyes were glittering with pleasure and a
mouth was smiling at having me there." tresolution

"I guess I'll go to canada"

This is a significant quote because it explains that pi would rather go to canada and
start over than to go back to india and start over

"...which story do you prefer?" Pi asks his interviewers. They become

more and more frustrated, perhaps by being asked to believe things
that are not "dry, yeastless, factuality." They leave. The reporters later
describe him as "very thin, very tough, very bright."