Ambiguity In Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

Yann Martel is an award-winning Canadian author with many notable works, including Life of Pi. In this novel, Trent University alumnus depicts a story of a young Indian boy, Piscine Patel, who is stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck. In Life of Pi, Yann Martel presents two stories to leave the reader conflicted as to what story is true, which emphasizes the reader’s subjective ideology and the realization that there is no absolute truth.
Most readers presume that the relativity of truth isn’t introduced until the end of the novel, but the beginning of the novel also postulates that there is no absolute truth. The author’s note blurs the border amid fact and fiction. It is completely plausible that Martel went to India and found inspiration for the novel, even coming across a man who told him “a story that would make you believe in God” (X), is a conceivable tale. The story becomes absurd when it is stated that the man who told Martel the story of Pi was Francis Adirubasamyㅡbetter known as Mamaji. The story of Pi is fictitious and thus Mamaji is as well, it would be

Martel intended to leave an ambiguous ending that was open to interpretation, but readers are not content with ambiguity and want to find a truth instead of a belief. Readers are encouraged to take a leap of faith and decide what story they believe for themselves, trying to find out what story is true is impossible. The story can never be fully comprehended, there will never be one true story for the novel. There is no one truth, but as soon as a reader believes one story, that becomes their truth. As the Japanese investigators are questioning the authenticity of the animal story, Pi responds, “which story do you prefer” (352)? They only had Pi’s word to go off of and had to other evidence as to what story really happened, so they can only believe in the