the real story in life of pi

1589 Words7 Pages
The Real Story in Life of Pi The difference between fiction and reality is not always evident to those who are unable or unwilling to recognize the difference. In Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, he wants the reader to decipher whether his first story or his second story is real. The first story consists of the protagonist, Piscine Patel, being trapped on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, and many other animals from his father’s zoo after they were lost together at sea. In the second story, Piscine tells us that he was actually on a lifeboat with a chef, his mother, and a sailor, where the characters were changed to animals to help him cope with his loss. Martel clearly wishes the reader to understand why “Pi” might have been more truthful in the one story rather than the other. He does this through different hints scattered throughout the novel. The author never truly admits which story is true, but various occurrences throughout the novel make the actual story obvious. Martel proves that the second story is real by having the investigators of Pi conclude that there is no such island that he could have encountered on his journey, that there was no proof of a tiger living with Pi in the lifeboat, and by admitting that Pi had to look at his life in a new light to survive by himself on a lifeboat. “The fabric of the island seemed to be an intricate, tightly webbed mass of tube-shaped seaweed” (Martel 324), Pi states that the trees grew out of algae and that there was no soil on the island. On the contrary, there is no evidence that Pi had really encountered such a bizarre island on his travels. “The fabric of the island seemed to be an intricate, tightly webbed mass of tube-shaped seaweed” (Martel 324), yet in the very next line, Pi admits to himself that this is an imaginary island. The trees that Pi saw were growing out of algae instead of
Open Document