Life of Pi Essay
Thomas Ehret
English Department of Rockland District High School
ENG3U
Friday, December 14th, 2012
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In the society that we live in today, anyone can agree that people tend to do
things that confuse others, completely throw them off, or simply make them ask the
question, “Why?”.This usually happens when others do completely abnormal things that
one might think are totally out of the norm, but, Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity:
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”. This famous
quote tells us that constantly doing the same thing over and over and expecting a
different outcome is crazy too. So whether it is going to one extreme and doing
completely bizarre things to get something different, or always doing the same thing and
expecting something different, it is all just crazy. In the book Life of Pi by Yann Martel,
the protagonist, Pi, is a tremendous example of someone who is victimized into
situations like these throughout his life. Pi has an extremely difficult time understanding
why people do certain things and act the way they do. He cannot piece together why
many people have such an inability to accept change or do something that is unusual to
their routine. Pi also finds it challenging to witness something he has never seen before,
and grow accustomed to it, or at least be able to live with it. He expects others to
sympathize for him even though he does not necessarily sympathize for them. Another
reason why Pi has an arduous time comprehending the ways of man is because of his
background of living on a zoo. His father taught him about animal psychology which
makes Pi assume that people act similarly to animals in certain situations. In general,
Pi’s mind goes all over the place throughout his story and these are basically the
reasons why.
One of the huge reasons why Pi struggles to understand how people function is
because they do not seem to easily accept change and live with it. Pi finds himself
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totally confused when people are incapable of doing this because he is constantly put
into new situations where he has to adapt and live with the change. In the novel, the
part where the Hindu, Christian, and Muslim meet for the first time and argue about
what religion Pi truly believes in, demonstrates Pi’s confusion very well. This situation is
perplexing to Pi because he just wants to be able to love God in many different ways.
The contradiction lasts for a long time but one part of it that truly shows their disregard
for each other’s religions is when the pandit begins to get very aggressive by saying:
“The proof of how bad Islam is, is how uncivilized Muslims are,”
pronounced the pandit. “Says the slave-driver of the caste
system,” huffed the imam. “Hindus enslave people and worship
dressed-up dolls.” “They are the golden calf lovers. They kneel
before cows,” the priest chimed in. “While Christians kneel before
a white man! They are the flunkies of a foreign god. [...] “What it
comes down to,” the priest put out with cool rage, “is whether
Piscine wants real religion – or myths from a cartoon strip.”
(Martel, 75) [Ellipsis mine]
As said before, this argument between the Hindu, the Christian, and the Muslim goes on
for a few pages but this little passage allows us to truly acknowledge their disapproval
for a religion that is not their own. The trio early on tries to prove why their own religion
is right, but at this point, they just start attacking each other’s and it becomes very
fallacious. These men cannot accept something that contradicts what they believe in
and Pi just cannot understand why. After this happens, Pi says: “Bapu Ghandi said, ‘All
religions are true.’ I just want to love God,” (Martel, 76). Pi is somewhat breaking down
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emotionally at this point because of the extremes that these men are willing to go to in
order to prove their religion. They do not at any point just say that everyone is entitled to
have their own religion, which is something that Pi would have really liked. Instead, they
purposelessly bash each other because they do not like the idea of a new religion while
Pi enjoys and lives freely with all of them.
There is definitely more than one moment in the novel where Pi demonstrates his
confusion towards people who have difficulty undergoing change. Another example of it
is in the last section of the book when Pi is talking to the Japanese officials. When the
officials are interviewing Pi, they explain how they do not believe that his story is true.
This is evident in the following portion of the conversation: “Mr Okamoto: ‘Mr. Patel, we
don’t believe your story.’ ‘Sorry-these cookies are good but they tend to crumble. I’m
amazed. Why not?’ ‘It doesn’t hold up.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Bananas don’t float.’”
(Martel, 324). This is the start of the Japanese officers’ doubt for Pi’s story. Pi continues
to be surprised and shocked as to why they do not believe his story and he comes up
with very good reason to back it up. Summing up the rest of the conversation, a good
chunk of it is Pi being unable to comprehend their doubt for Pi’s story. He ends up going
into a bit of a rage because of their inability to accept his new and very different story
bothers him. He concludes his minor rant by saying: “Tigers exist, lifeboats exist,
oceans exist. Because the three have never come together in your narrow, limited
experience, you refuse to believe that they might.” (Martel, 332). Pi actually starts
attacking the Japanese officials’ stories in order to prove his point about believing. He
does not like the fact that people tend to only believe what they see.
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Even though it is quite contradicting to how Pi does not understand that people
have difficulty accepting change, he also has a tough time overcoming big psychological
obstacles. As said before, Pi is constantly bombarded with events that change so much
in his life which could be an excellent reason why the novel is actually titled, Life of Pi.
Pi can be considered somewhat of a hypocrite because of his dislike towards people’s
inability to live with change. This is because he can actually experience difficulty when
introduced to something new, or put into a situation where there is a drastic change
sometimes too. It only seems plausible for one who goes through so much insanity and
so many abnormal events to not enjoy going through them sometimes or to have a
tough time with it even if they do. It’s clear that Pi never overcame the loss of his family
because he evidently explains so to the Japanese officials. During the discussion, one
of the officials attempted to get back on topic before Pi brought his loss back into the
picture. The Official initiated it by saying: “We are here because of a Japanese cargo
ship owned by Oika Shipping Company, flying the Panamanian flag, sank in the
Pacific.” (Martel 334). The brief chat until the long pause of silence started with Pi’s
response: ““Something I never forget, not for a minute. I lost my whole family.” “We’re
sorry about that.” “Not as much as I am.” [Long silence]” (Martel, 334). There are many
moments in the interview/interrogation between Pi and the Japanese officials where in
square brackets, it says, “Long silence” which tells the reader that there is some sort of
awkwardness in the room. This awkwardness is brought to be because the Japanese
officials are not there to listen to Pi’s issues and troubles, they are there simply because
of business and to find out how and why the Tsimtsum sunk. Their job is not to show
their condolences to Pi which is why they are not too comfortable in doing so. Pi does
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not have an easy time getting over the loss of his family, and it is not wrong of him to
expect some sympathy from others.
Pi had a few drastic events in his life that definitely affected him emotionally
enough to give him a hard time recovering, but there were some less drastic events that
had a big effect on him too. Of course he did not like that people had a tough time
overcoming obstacles and allowing change into their lives, but he had trouble too
sometimes. I personally do not know anyone that overcomes every situation in their life
with pure ease. An example of a smaller event or situation where Pi is struck
emotionally and expects sympathy is when he was younger and got called, ‘Pissing’
instead of ‘Piscine’ which is his actual name. Pi hated being called ‘Pissing’ which is
why he eventually changed his name to Pi so he would never have that problem. Pi
explains a little bit about the torture throughout the novel, but at one part in the first
section of the book, there is a whole chapter dedicated to it. Pi begins by saying:
The cruelty of children comes as new to no one. The words would
waft across the yard to my ears, unprovoked, uncalled for:
“Where’s Pissing? I’ve got to go.” Or: “You’re facing the wall. Are
you Pissing?” Or something of the sort. I would freeze or, the
contrary, pursue my activity, pretending not to have heard. The
sound would disappear, but the hurt would linger, (Martel, 22)
After this, he goes on about how the teachers actually joke about his name too and he
would not mention that if it did not affect him whatsoever. Obviously having elder people
make fun of his name influenced him too which is why he came up with the only
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reasonable solution that would fix the problem: slightly altering his name. In general,
there were many things that touched him emotionally and gave him a hard time to
overcome them and little things like name calling was one of them. Even though he has
issues with people that cannot get over simple things like that, he has difficulty with it
too.