The Story of A Story

About his book, Life of Pi, Yann Martel said "I was sort of looking for a story, not only with a small ‘s’ but sort of with a capital ‘S’ – something that would direct my life." As he attempted to give direction to his own life, Martel, perhaps subconsciously, clarified the meaning of life for his race as a whole. Taking place mainly on a lifeboat in the Pacific, the story of Piscine Molitor Patel seeks to explore human nature in its most basic state, though in an undoubtedly peculiar situation. No pun intended, we are all in the same boat, and as we look deep inside Pi, we look deep inside ourselves. Pi finds himself defined by the two great sisters, science and religion, that organize the understanding of mankind, and as he explains his relationship with the two from his unique perspective, we are brought to look at our own relationships with them, both as individuals and society.

First of all, Pi is emphatic in his belief in God, and his relationship with Him is narrated vividly. His peculiar story of the "Three Wise Men" serves as the introduction to his relationship with religion. Innocently going against the popular belief that it’s a one-or-the-other decision when it comes to religion, Pi views religion as merely the way to commune with God. This reflects his apparent view that God is within us rather than a separate being from us, corresponding with the Islam faith. In the moments of his deepest despair at the loss of his family and loneliness, he says, “The blackness would…eventually go away, and God would remain, a shining point of light in my heart.” He has a deep connection with deity from the beginning clear through even his most heinous trials, praising Allah at every wonder he sees and saying things like, “So long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen.” As we view his story and his relationship with religion, interesting yet firm, we are forced to ask ourselves where we stand with deity.

Martel’s story offers a grand perspective on science as well as religion. Describing the wonders of nature with clarity that ranges from picturesque to grotesque, Martel’s obvious effort to bring science into an exciting light cannot be ignored. He puts science to story. In fact, as he presents a deeper, perhaps more controversial idea about science, he relates science to a story. The mind boggling story of the flesh-eating island is told in such a way that leaves even the reader wondering. After all, this experience apparently happens just after his delirious state—who’s to say the tale wasn’t just part of his insanity? Also, the men prodding him for the facts at the end figure his story in general is impossible at first, it being so bizarre. However, Pi shares Martel’s view of science when he tells them, “The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no?” Thus, our understanding shapes our world in a real way, and we must trust that understanding, like we trust a story, with no guarantee that it’s right. He says “Be excessively reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.”

On this same train of thought, Martel connects religion to science with the idea that both science and religion are based just as much on the study of ourselves and the “quiet meadow of the heart” as the study of our surroundings. He says that when we “lack imagination,” we will “miss the better story,” the story that resides both within and without us. He concludes “Life of Pi” with his experience with the probing Chinese men, Pi fighting to help them see that science and religion, like a story, can be believed only by those with imagination. He gives them a choice between the “true” story, or the more believable one, and the “better” story, as they call it. The very last sentence reveals the men’s eventual belief in his story, stating in their official report, “Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.”