When someone asks a question, they are usually seeking an answer. When literature asks a question, it is seeking an action. I feel that the central question of Life of Pi is: How much of religion is real?
I was hesitant to write my essay around this prompt because I’m still not quite sure that I missed a deeper meaning hidden within the book, but as I pondered which prompt to write on, I compared Pi’s first account of what happened aboard the boat to that of Christ. They’re similar in the way that they’re both so surreal that it’s difficult to believe either one. So the question Life of Pi left me with was whether or not I truly believe in my religion or if I’m behaving similarly to Pi when he created the story of the animals to protect himself the true trauma of his reality.
Life of Pi doesn’t offer the answer to this question because Yann Martel never tells the reader which account is true; the readers are merely left to decide for themselves what happened on that life boat. It’s up to the reader to see that Richard Parker is Pi’s way to deal with the things he did on his quest for survival.
C.S. Lewis once said, “Literature adds to reality; it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.” I found this quote quite fitting for the central question in Life of Pi, not only because of the content of the quote but also because of the strong religious background of the man who said it. I feel that Life of Pi does add to reality by showing that what we think is real may not always be so. At the same time, however, the novel also shows that reality and fiction are in our own hands when it comes to religion.
6-> 87
ReplyDelete