The religion of Christianity holds true to the theme: Through tough times, faith prevails. Early in the book, Pi realizes that he is on a lifeboat with a full grown Bengal tiger that would eat him if it gets hungry enough. He considers jumping off the boat to swim away, but that leads to death by sharks, starvation, or dehydration. If he stays on the boat, one of the animals could maul or eat him. Either way he will die and his predicament seems helpless. Pi would have given up if it weren’t for the voice in his head saying: I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said, ‘I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. …show more content…
When Pi fishes, he talks about the times where he would have a lot of fish to catch, kill, and give to Richard Parker. It was exhausting work that made him look like he was wearing a tilaks all over his body. “During those days of plenty, I laid hands on so many fish that my body began to glitter from all the fish scales that became stuck to it. I wore these spots of shine and silver like tilaks, the marks of colour that we Hindus wear on our foreheads as symbols of the divine” (Martel 196). Pi is referring to a tilak that is worn on the foreheads of followers of certain Gods. “Tilak is a mark of auspiciousness. It is put on the forehead with sandal paste, sacred ashes or kumkum. The devotees of Siva apply sacred ashes on the forehead, the devotees of Vishnu apply sandal paste, and the worshippers of Devi or Shakti apply Kumkum, a red tumeric powder” (Shivananda). This marking is religious and highly important to these people. The fish tales that stick to Pi symbolize the tilaks. Not only are these tilaks are worn for a symbol of a religious group; they can also be a symbol of the divine. The scales on Pi can symbolize the divine in humans. Atman is the concept of the divine in humans. What the divine in Pi means is that God is with him. Using the device of symbolism, the fish scales that cover Pi depict the divine that is within