Life Of Pi Rhetorical Analysis

845 Words4 Pages
Final Draft 9 December 2013 A Truth Behind the Story In the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi tells two stories, which depicts his real experiences versus a fictitious story that he thinks people might believe. Pi is placed in a life or death situation, which tests his faith and morality. Pi, who believes in three religions, develops a sense of morality and kindness towards all living things. However when he is faced with death, he abandons his morality in order to survive. When asked by insurance investigators what events happened while he was on his journey, Pi describes an awe inspiring, extraordinary story in which he finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger named Richard Parker. Towards the end of the novel, when…show more content…
Pi says, “So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?” (Martel 295). This question sums up the deeper symbol of this story and faith in religion. As in religion, simply having faith is enough to preserve morality. But, this question may be explained differently. When Pi asks this question, it suggests that he realizes that the story of the animals must be an illusion created by him. He then also realizes that this illusion is not a bad one. It has allowed him to survive an ordeal that could have very easily killed him. This acknowledgment suggests that somewhere deep inside he accepts the story with the people is true, but it does not matter. Instead of viewing this illusion as anthropomorphicus, he quite simply understands the human actions as the actions of animals, and so it is uncomplicated for his mind to try and comprehend the situation. By seeing people as animals, he is able to save his own
Open Document