Animals and People

The Life of Pi Critical Analysis
For much of the book there are few human characters, but Yann Martel effectively uses the animals on the lifeboat as important characters through whom he develops important themes. By personifying the animals in the book he creates interest and also develops some main themes about life.
Throughout the book there are many parallels between human and animal behavior. In fact, some of the most wild and lawless creatures in the book are people. Take for example the crew who threw a boy overboard to try to save themselves, or the blind man who tried to eat Pi, or the cook from Pi's alternate story who killed and ate people. Even the animals don't seem to stoop that low. The orangutan has an almost noble air about itself, compared to “the Virgin Mary” and fighting against the mean, ugly hyena. However, even the hyena's bad traits of eating nasty things and fighting over food shows up later in the book when Pi gets desperate enough to do just about anything to eat all kinds of things. While he starts out as a vegetarian, Pi turns out to be the number one predator in the book, he kills more than anyone else, even providing for Richard Parker. Numerous times Pi depends on his animal-like instincts to stay alive; it's almost as if Richard Parker is a better communicator than Pi and Pi, the novice, has to try and figure out messages Richard Parker sends. Furthermore, the most obviously human-name in the book happens to belong to a tiger. It is clear that Yann Martel effectively personifies the animals, but what effect does this create?
We know from the extensive description of the sloth at the beginning of the book that animals are to be learned from. Perhaps Martel is trying to make a point about how many of us need to pay more attention to nature around us and realize that many things about it are more dignified than we ourselves are. It is possible than Martel wants to make a point about belief in God. It is a miracle Pi was able to survive, and yet it seems almost coincidental that the one character in the book who is able to survive is the strongest believer in God. One big thing that separates Pi from the rest of the characters, both animal and human, is his strong belief in deity and his grasp on the deep significance of his life. When everything else changes, his environment, his friends, his diet, the one sure constant is God, it is the only thing that makes the difference. One might say that other factors allowed him to survive, but it is clear that the among the most influential is his determination to live which stems from his unwavering faith in God.