Life of Pi! (:

When Emily Dickinson wrote that “much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye”, she stated the ever true statement of how playwrights and novelists view madness. Often times, writers create a character whose madness seems very evident, but actually plays a key part of the story. In Life of Pi, for example, Piscene (Pi) Patel is a character who displays symptoms that might seem of madness. However, his role in the story is vital and his behavior is what makes the story. He only does not seem mad in one aspect, however, but in many areas does he come across as being irrational and somewhat crazy.


One area that Pi extends beyond the borders of normality is through his religious views. Pi is not Hindu, Christian, or Islam, but he is all three. The three leaders of these religions that he knew, as well as his family, were simply appalled by this, but Pi finds it quite reasonable. He finds the stories fascinating, not just because of what happened or how the religion formed, but almost because there is a sense of a higher degree of love for humanity in all of them. But, for such a religious child, Pi also finds deep appreciation for atheism, because he believes that if one is going to believe in something, he or she should truly believe with all they have. This is why he is disgusted by agnostics. They lack creativity and imagination in Pi’s eyes because they refuse to make a decision on the topic of God, whereas he believes they should believe one thing or the other as a definitive answer. This whole seeming madness in everyone’s eyes but Pi’s illustrate just who Pi is in a way, and emphasize the importance of faith and spirituality that becomes a major factor throughout the rest of the story on how Pi views things.

Through his time on the lifeboat, Pi seems incredibly mad. Not only is he on the boat in the beginning with an orangutan and zebra, but a hyena and a Bengal tiger as well. As he watches in fear as the hyena kills the zebra and orangutan and the tiger kills the hyena, it seems all hope is lost for young Pi. As time progresses though and the reader watches Pi grow throughout the story, he seems crazy, perhaps suicidal in some areas. He builds his own raft attached to the boat and stays there in open water surrounded by sharks. He also claims his territory on the lifeboat with the tiger, Richard Parker, on board by pouring urine on the tarp above Richard Parker. Not only does Pi remain with the tiger on the boat, he attempts to keep him alive by breaking all morals and killing fish not just for himself, but for Richard Parker as well. Pi even goes so far as to tame Richard Parker by rocking the boat and blowing a whistle so Richard Parker would begin associating the whistle with sea-sickness. If this doesn’t seem mad enough, Pi stays in the boat with Richard Parker after a storm destroys his raft, and when they land on an island, he leaves once he deems the water unsafe and heads back into open water. All of this truly does seem like Pi has been exposed to the sun too long and has gone crazy. These events though, exemplify the will to live that is so prevalent in this story.

Both faith and the will to live are important factors in this story. Without these, Pi would have never made it out of the situation at sea. He relied throughout the endeavors on religious references, such as seeing things as “God’s eyes”. Despite his love for God though, his spirituality could not handle his needs. Even though he prayed daily, his need for religion slowly molded into his need for survival. Pi, originally very principled, begins to break his values because it would be impossible to continue living without doing so. Though he seems mad, his will to survive is actually the deciding factor in all decisions.

At the end, when Pi tells the Japanese man a whole different story because the man expressed his disbelief, one really sees Pi as mad. His new story consists of him being even more a breaker of his morals, through killing not an animal, but another person. Pi never tells the truth as to which one is the actual story. He takes this first step in being a story teller, something that led him to even tell the story of his boat survival for the writing of “Life of Pi”. One thing, though, that is interesting is Pi’s name. Pi, in math, is the never-ending number, a number of unsurety. Just like his name, this book has an almost never ending number of tales that leave the reader unsure of the truth or what happened, including the ending. There is no resolution in the end, just as in the number Pi, just something to leave the reader wondering.

The whole story, it seems, is full of madness.