Overview
- The novel’s outstanding first part takes us on Pi’s journey before the dreaded shipwreck.
- Pi is an inquisitive boy who is amazed with the world and its many wonders.
- Throughout his journey, we see how Pi’s home life indirectly prepares him for the tragic struggles that lie ahead of him.
- Much emphasis is placed on his passion for religion and his
strong relationship with God. - His experience as a zookeeper’s son is another critical component for his survival in part two, as it educates him on how to handle animals and their wild behaviour.
On a unique note
- The opening author’s note is rather peculiar in comparison to the traditional author’s note. Yann Martel has written himself into the text as a character, using italics to indicate the voicing of this character.
- The telling of a story within a story creates a divinely unusual frame narrative.
- The only frames we experience in part one, however, consist of Yann Martel, the writer of the author’s note and Pi’s childhood voice.
Radical Religions
- Pi’s unusual view on religion is slowly explained as Yann Martel describes the series of events that lead to Pi’s love for not one, but three different religious practices.
- In one suspenseful event, all three of Pi’s religious mentors stumble onto his path at the same time. After much defensive outrage from the ‘three wise men’, Pi declares that he is a faithful believer in all three religions, saying, "Bapu Gandhi said, 'All religions are true.' I just want to love God."
Super science
- Although he is unquestionably faithful to all three of his chosen religions, Pi also expresses a healthy passion for science.
- Satish Kumar (Pi’s biology teacher) is an atheist polio survivor who inspires Pi to study zoology in college.
- Although he is a science-lover, Pi does not agree with Kumar’s atheist view that religion is darkness, saying, “Darkness is the last thing that religion is. Religion is light.”
Soothing sloth
While growing up in the Pondicherry Zoo, Pi spent many a happy
hour observing and
interacting with a variety of weird and
wonderful animals. He expressed a
particular interest, however, in
the three-toed sloth. He portrays the sloth
as, “calm, quiet and
introspective”,
describing soothing effect that it has on him. He
goes on to describe their many weaknesses, such as their dulled
senses. He
says, “On a scale of 2 to 10, where 2 represents
unusual
dullness and 10 extreme acuity, Beebe (1926) gave the sloth's
senses of
taste, touch, sight and hearing a rating of 2, and its sense
of smell a rating
of 3.” Considering how slow the sloth is, and how
dulled their senses are, it
is a miracle that they survive at all! Their
being is proof that it is possible to
survive, despite vulnerability. It
is a message that gives Pi hope and
contributes toward his
miraculous survival in part two.
Sources
http://www.gradesaver.com/life-of-pi/q-and-a/what-does-the-sloth-symbolize-to-pi-112147
http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/why-does-pi-describe-sloth-beautiful-example-66137
https://sites.google.com/site/15lifeofpi1/chapters/chapter-1
http://www.shmoop.com/life-of-pi/religion-quotes.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lifeofpi/themes.html
