Life Of Pi Religion Vs Religion

When it comes to the existence of a god or gods, there are three kinds of people in this world: Those who believe, those who do not believe, and those who do not concern themselves with the subject. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, it is promised that Pi Patel’s narrative “will make you believe in God” (X). In Life of Pi, there are two stories by this protagonist: Pi’s “dry, yeastless factuality” (63) tale of survival and the “better story” (63). Martel does not indicate to the reader which story actually occurred, and neither can be proven as the legitimate one, which parallels the arguments between the existence of a god and scientific reason. In the story, Pi’s father believes in humankind’s contemporary discoveries, which contradicts Pi’s

Because Pi is a Hindu, Christian, and Muslim, he incorporates many of their religious stories into his narrative. When Pi is fourteen, he goes on holiday with his family to a hill station in Munnar. There, he meets a priest named Father Martin. Once Father Martin introduces him to the story of Jesus Christ, it is impossible for Pi to get the Christian Messiah out of his head. Pi says, “I couldn’t get Him [Jesus Christ] out of my head… And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him” (57). For Pi, the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the humanity found in the “one Story” (53) of Christianity move him to believe in the Christian view of a Trinitarian God. Although the story cannot be proven, Pi is infatuated with the story of Jesus Christ because it provides more hope and love than the realities of science and progress. Because Pi believes in Christianity, he gains more internal goods than he would from modernization. As a Muslim, Pi enjoys the sacredness that comes with his prayers with Mr. Kumar. After one prayer session, Pi is riding back to his house when he “suddenly felt [he] was in heaven” (62). Even though Pi has ridden this route many times before, his “way of seeing it had changed” (62). For once, “the trees, the air, the sun all spoke differently to [him], now they spoke one language of unity” (62).

Throughout the novel, the only story of Pi’s survival is the incredible one in which he survives 227 days on a lifeboat with the company of a maternal orangutan, a voracious hyena, an injured zebra, and a ferocious tiger. In the story, the hyena kills both the orangutan and zebra, until the tiger ultimately kills the hyena. From beginning to end, Pi’s tale of survival is full of seemingly impossible elements, such as the carnivorous algae island and the ability to survive on a raft with a tiger. Then, after being interrogated and ridiculed for the impossibility of his anecdote by officials in the Japanese Ministry of Transport, Pi produces a new story. This new narrative includes similar details but is much more graphic and much less imaginative. In this new story, Pi survives 227 days on a lifeboat with the company of his mother, a voracious French cook, and an injured Chinese sailor. Additionally, the French cook kills both the Taiwanese sailor and Pi’s mother. After the murder of his mother, Pi kills the French cook. Upon closer inspection, it is found that the two opposing stories are truly the same story, just two different versions: “The Taiwanese sailor is the zebra, his [Pi’s] mother is the orang-utan, the cook is… the hyena– which means he’s [Pi is] the tiger!” (311). But Pi argues that of his two stories, the one full of animals and anomalies is the “better