Life of Pi: Can a Story Make You Believe in God?

Image from: https://d1w7fb2mkkr3kw.cloudfront.net/assets/images/book/lrg/9780/1560/9780156027328.jpg

Introduction

Life is Pi is a magnum opus by Yann Martel retelling similar sagas told in Jonah and the Whale, Homer’s Odyssey, the Book of Job, and many other unforgettable stories. Yann Martel throws in serious themes of survival, religion, and morality in an ocean of questions and tragedies. The humor he employs in his storytelling makes his readers guffaw, while the intriguing ideas and the beautiful language mesmerize them. The novel is composed of exactly 100 chapters and divided into three unequal parts. The first part serves as the "prelude" of the "story" in which the older Pi narrates his story to the writer, punctuated with few observations from the writer about the older Pi's current life. Part One ends with a declaration from the writer that "This story has a happy ending" (Martel, 2001, p. 103). Part Two is "the story," written from the teenage Pi's point of view, in which numerous tragic, unbelievable and beautiful events are narrated. Part Three is composed of Pi's interview by the two agents from the Japanese Ministry of Transport about the sinking of the ship Tsimtsum. When the Japanese agents are reluctant to accept the first story, Pi resorts to a rhetorical mode and says: "Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?" (Martel, 2001, p. 330).

Life of Pi begins with a claim: a story that will make you believe in God (Martel, 2001, p. viii). Is it just a grandiose claim or a rightful one? Can Pi’s story truly make one believe in God? The answer is both yes and no. The purpose of this essay is to explore the intricate details that prove or refute that claim. Furthermore, this essay aims to justify how this statement is followed through.

No: It Does Not Make One Believe in God

Life of Pi is a paradox, in the sense that it could make its readers to believe or not to believe in God. When Pi narrates the second macabre story that culminates in murder and cannibalism, the whole book almost becomes anticlimactic. By giving the readers the choice which story to believe, the fantastic first story of animals and magical events becomes allegorical and almost fictitious. This could be fatally misconstrued by the nonbelievers that religions, and God, are nothing but figments of one’s imagination. It makes God nothing but a fabricated lie. Therefore, it is a double-edged sword. Brown says, “Martel's statement is likely to have the opposite effect on his reader, provoking a determined counter-reaction not to succumb to a didactic religious agenda” (n.d., para. 2).

Yes: It Makes One Believe in God

On a literal level, Life of Pi tells the odyssey of a boy who survives a shipwreck for 227 days, accompanied by a dangerous tiger. At a deeper level, it is about the endurance of faith and self-discovery. It is a gripping philosophical adventure that explores truth in religion and storytelling. How does Life of Pi deliver its promise of a story that makes one believe in God? It does by providing thought-provoking notions: the universality of faith and many paths to God; human perseverance leads to spiritual redemption; doubt is essential to faith; the power of storytelling; and the beauty of nature, forces outside one’s control, and symbolism.

The Universality of Faith and Many Paths to God

Pi is Hindu-born who later on embraces Christianity and Islam. When he is caught and questioned by the three wise men, he reasons “Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God” (Martel, 2001, p. 76). Pi’s father objects to his inter-faith practice and says, “They’re separate religions! They have nothing in common” (Martel, 2001, p. 80). But Pi is unmoved and remains a devout believer. Pi's piety makes the readers ponder the possibility of a universal brotherhood. The holy scriptures of the three religions are filled with tales of believers who endure losses and sufferings, yet they still remain strong and face their trials without fear. Pi believes that all three religions have kernels of truth in them, and they are equally beautiful and true in his eyes. For Pi, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and even science, all seek the same thing – the higher power. Essentially, religions are all the same. God is the same, just under different names. This may be illogical from the viewpoint of the minds, but it is not so from the perspective of the soul (Kidd, 2013, para. 4). There are many religions and not one is the single source of the truth. Unlike man, God is not limited by human frailties and failings. God does not discriminate. God does not persecute based on one’s religious affiliation. Religion is man-made, whereas faith is not. To transcend religious boundaries, man must understand that there are many paths to God. In this context, Life of Pi is a story that makes one believe in God for it aims to discover God in all religions.

Perseverance Leads to Spiritual Redemption

Nothing strengthens faith more effectively than a tale of survival against insurmountable odds, of perseverance and of spiritual redemption. It is the theme central to all tales depicted in many religions. But Life of Pi isn't about human suffering; it's about human perseverance and the strength that can be found in trusting in the unknown and exploring the power of human imagination. The novel is a work of magic realism which can easily slip into the absurd. In the end, readers question the reality of the world around us, wondering about God, the power of storytelling, and the struggle of the human condition (Hendrix, 2013, para. 2). Fernando argues that the "suffering and ultimate spiritual resurrection that Pi experiences parallel the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and at the end of the novel, similar to Jesus, Pi offers his own parables about the meaning of faith” (2009, para. 1). The beauty of Life of Pi lies in the fact that despite all the catastrophes that happen to Pi, he survives. Pi’s survival is a testimony that perhaps there is a Higher Being looking after him, or how else could he survive such unthinkable odds and evade eminent death. This is relevant to human existence; only through trials and sufferings that one becomes stronger. Inevitably, how one overcomes adversities define him or her. Pi’s tragedies, his perseverance, his survival and ultimately, his spiritual redemption make one believe in God.

Doubt is Essential to Faith

Why do good people suffer? That is a question that has no definite answer. There are no rationalizations to the unhappiness and sufferings that one has to endure. In his moment of weakness, Pi questions: “Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed. And I am allowed no explanation? I am to suffer hell without any account from heaven?” (Martel, 2001, p. 108). This is comparable to Jesus Christ exclaiming: “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). This is similar to Job questioning: “God, why have You made me your Target?” (Job 7:20). Like Job, Pi breaks down and questions God for his suffering. Just like Job, his faith is tested, and he is subjected to pain and losses. True faith can only grow and mature if it includes the elements of paradox and creative doubt. Such doubt is not the enemy of faith but an essential element of it (Leech, cited in Brussat & Brussat, 1998, p. 153). Doubt, followed by the acceptance of one’s fate and of knowing that one cannot know everything, leads to a stronger faith. Thus, this doubting episode in Pi’s life makes one believe in God.

The Power of Storytelling

Life of Pi is a story within a story. It is told in a complex storytelling through several layers of narration. Storytelling is a vehicle that most religions use to teach their doctrines. Jesus Christ used stories to teach his disciples and followers. Each of Pi’s three religions, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam, comes with its own set of tales and fables, which are used to spread the teachings and illustrate the beliefs of the faith (SparkNotes Editors, 2012, para. 5). When Pi first hears of the crucifixion of Christ, he is appalled: “What? Humanity sins but it’s God’s Son who pays the price? I tried to imagine Father saying to me, ‘Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed two llamas... The situation has become intolerable... I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you to them’” (Martel, 2001, p. 58). Yet, Pi is unable to get Jesus Christ out of his head. Eventually, he is converted by the power of the Christian stories that climax into the cross. Innes says “storytelling is a kind of religious experience because it helps us understand the world in a more profound way than a just-the-facts approach, or by implication, dogma, fundamentalism and literalism” (2002, para. 6). Partikian discusses “the idea that unbelievable tales, those that defy logic, are an integral part of most religions. In order to have faith and believe in God, or the unknowable, we need to believe in stories that otherwise seem fictional, such as the biblical accounts of the Fall of Man, and Jonah and the Whale, or the tales of the Ramayana. Life of Pi is similarly a tale that asks the reader to suspend disbelief and have faith; it is only through this suspension that a person is able to read a story to make you believe in God” (2009, para. 1). Each story represents a greater, universal story about love. And the power of storytelling draws out the truth and compels the readers to believe.

The Beauty of Nature, Forces outside One’s Control, and Symbolism

Being stranded in the vast, endless ocean, Pi feels God's presence in the beauty and grandiosity of his surroundings. The vast ocean, the starry sky, awe-inspiring lightning sky, all the animals, and the nature as a whole are too beautiful to be just another cosmic accident. Pi consistently sees God in everything. One day, a lightning nearly hits the lifeboat; Richard Parker trembles in fear whereas Pi is in a state of exalted wonder. Pi exclaims: “This is a miracle. This is an outbreak of divinity” (Martel, 2001, p. 259). God is present in everything. God is present in nature; man is just too blind to see. Man’s mere existence in this universe speaks of a Higher Power. Dan Brown comments that “how could man not see God in science (nature); the slightest change in gravitational force or the weight of an atom would have rendered our universe a lifeless mist” (2013, p. 382). Life on earth, which is beautifully portrayed in the novel, is a reminder of One Great Creator.

Believing in God entails that one must believe in the outside forces outside his or her control. St. Francis Assisi once prayed, “Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Pi is bombarded with events and things that are beyond his control: the sinking of Tsimtsum ship; losing his family; being stuck in a lifeboat with a 450-pound carnivorous Bengal tiger. Ultimately, Pi’s relationship with Richard Parker represents man’s struggle to live in harmony with forces he cannot control. In context, this makes it a story that will make one believe in God; for believing in God means confronting and accepting forces outside of one’s control that may be a part of God’s grand scheme.

The ambiguity whether Richard Parker is a real tiger or an allegorical one remains. But the book doesn’t ask which story is more factual, rather which story the readers prefer. The novel claims of a story that will make one believe in God. It doesn’t claim of a story that will make one believe that God exists. It requires a narrative leap of faith into believing, rather than presenting evidence that support God's existence. Whether one accepts the first version story with animals or the second story of gruesome murder and cannibalism as true, one faces the challenge of recognizing the hidden signs to answer how this story can make one believe in God. Symbolism is abundant in this book, and one of the most relevant ones is Pi’s nickname which he adopts as a short version of Piscine after he is mercilessly taunted by his classmates as ‘Pissing.’ Pi (π) is an “irrational number” with endless decimal numbers. Martel quips

“And so, in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge" (2001, pp. 26-27). This indicates that Pi is in harmony with everything, even the unfathomable. Furthermore, Kidd explains “Pi (π), being a transcendental number, could pertain to the transcendental aspect of man: the soul” (2013, para. 17).

Conclusion

Innes describes Life of Pi as “a religious book that makes sense to a nonreligious person” (2002, para. 2). Similarly, Brown agrees that “Life of Pi achieves something more quietly spectacular: it makes the reader want to believe in God. Martel gives the reader the democratic choice: the desire to believe rather than the belief itself” (n.d., para. 2). Life of Pi is a story that requires the suspension of disbelief, yet it asks to both believe in, and question, that which cannot be understood (Hendrix, 2013, para. 2). Whether Life of Pi is a story that makes one believe in God depends on the individual’s perception and choice.

In empirical sense, it still couldn't be completely and fully explained how Life of Pi makes one believe in God. It presents neither hard evidence nor foolproof facts. Yet, it is a story that moves its readers into believing. It inspires them to believe in one Supreme Being. It makes them contemplate that despite the technological innovation and unimpeded scientific advancement, that maybe they still don’t have all the answers. Perhaps that is why this novel is so moving, so convincing, so inspiring – the fact that it cannot explain why it makes one believe in God, it just does. Perhaps an infinite God is beyond the understanding of a finite man. Protestant minister Al Carmine, cited by Brussat & Brussat, explains it very eloquently: "Faith is such a simple thing. It can't talk but only sing. It can't reason but can dance" (1998, p. 153). Perhaps Lewis was right when he said, “words have tremendous power. They can modify our perceptions… bring us to the altar, or to war” (2015, p. 35). Yann Martel has created an unforgettable story that would probably reverberate throughout the eternity.

References

Brown, A. (n.d.). Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. The Pequod. Retrieved from http://www.thepequod.org.uk/essays/reviews/lop_ym.htm

Brown, D. (2003). Angels & Demons. New York, NY: Atria Books

Brussat, F., & Brussat M. (1998). Spiritual literacy: Reading the sacred in everyday life. New York, NY: Touchstone

Fernando, T. (n.d.) Life of Pi: A Christian parable. eNotes. Retrieved from http://www.enotes.com/life-pi/christian-parable

Hendrix, A. (2013, February 22). Life of Pi: A journey of spirit and survival [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://spiritualityhealth.com/blog/ariana-hendrix/life-pi-journey-spirit-and-survival

Innes, C. (2002, August 19). Robinson Crusoe, move over. The Nation [Weekly Edition], pp. 25-29. Retrieved from http://www.thenation.com/article/robinson-crusoe-move-over/

Kidd, P.T. (2013, September 8). Interpreting the meaning of Richard Parker and the Life of Pi [web log message]. Retrieved from http://paultkidd.blogspot.ca/2013/09/interpreting-meaning-of-richard-parker.html

Lewis, K. (2015). Word and world: A critical thinking reader. Toronto, Canada: Thomson-Nelson

Martel, Y. (2001). Life of Pi. Toronto, Canada: Vintage Canada

Partikian, D. (2003. May 27). Establishing faith despite opposing realities: The truth of fiction in Life of Pi." eNotes. Retrieved from http://www.enotes.com/life-pi/establishing-faith-despite-opposing-realities

SparkNotes Editors. (2006). Life of Pi. SparkNotes. Retrieved from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lifeofpi/themes.html

#LifeofPi #YannMartel #SherryLynneComaniuk