What the hell happened in Life of Pi?

In the movie Life of Pi, Pi started with a great promise, “my story would make you believe in God.”

Teenage Pi was on a ship to Canada when the ship was met by a storm and capsizes. Amidst of the panic, Pi grabbed onto a lifeboat along with an injured zebra, an orangutan and a hyena from his family zoo back in India. On the lifeboat, the hyena went a little crazy and bit the zebra and the orangutan to death. Right afterwards, a Bengal Tiger named “Richard Parker”, which has been hiding in the food storage, jumped out and killed the hyena. This all happened very within 5 minutes and seemed pointless and confusing at same time, but later we find out that the zebra is actually a Japanese freighter Pi met on the ship, the orangutan is Pi’s mother, while the hyena is French cook on the ship.

So what really happened on the lifeboat is this: the French chef killed Japanese sailor who was injured with a broken leg, and used his remains as fish bait. Pi’s mother couldn’t bear to see such cruelty, so she confronted the cook. The angry cook killed her out of impulse and used her as food and bait as well. Teenage Pi, traumatized and infuriated by the chef’s brutality, turned into Richard Parker and killed the chef. Thus begun Pi’s journey of hallucination.

Pi in human form represents the ingenious, civilized and religious side of himself. Richard Parker, on the other hand, is Pi’s alter ego, which represents the fierce, ruthless and uncivilized side of Pi. The external conflict between Pi and Richard Parker the tiger is, in fact, the internal conflict of the Pi- the battle to retain his civilized self while struggling for survival at sea.

 

In the movie, the castaway landed on the carnivorous island. During the light of day, the island has drinkable lake water and lively meerkats running around. At night, the algae turns carnivorous and the lake sizzles with acid, consuming whatever that remains on the jungle floor. But later we find out that this carnivorous island doesn’t really exist. It is, again, one of Pi’s insane hallucinations. Ang Lee, the director of the movie, made no attempt to conceal Pi's delusions either. The dazzling visual effects of the phosphorescent whale and the celestial bodies aligning to form various images such as Pi's mother's visage are all indications of Pi's loss of sanity. 

The island is a symbol for Pi’s final resort to cannibalism. The truth is, Pi was on the lifeboat the entire time while he was hallucinating about the island.The only thing that we can take away from the scene is the tooth Pi found in the algae leaf. The tooth probably belonged to the French chef he killed. It was when Pi discovered the tooth that he realized that he had been engaging in cannibalism, and felt the need to return to human civilization as soon as possible before he turns completely insane.  

As an innocent sixteen-year-old, having to consume human flesh for the sake of survival is something very hard to deal with. Therefore, the incarnation of his brutality in Richard Parker is the only way Pi separates himself from his cannibal side to retain his original civilized self.

At the very end, Pi gave both the fantastical account and the real account to the Japanese investigators, and asked which one they prefer. Because of the brutality of the actual story, the investigator chose the former. Pi also extended the question to the audience- which one would we choose? According to the movie, if we were to choose the story with the tiger, then we are “with God”.

This explains why the author of Life of Pi, out of all math symbols, decided to name the protagonist as "Pi". In mathematics, "Pi" is an irrational number, while Pi the character in the movie believes that irrationality carries more truth than facts. So the message of believing in irrationality is also integrated in the naming of the characters. 

In a way, the author set the story up so that the audience would choose the irrational story with the tiger. But just because the audience chose the irrational version of the story, that doesn’t mean they are religious. A better way to put this is that, the people who chose the story with the tiger are more optimistic while people who chose the story without the tiger are more realistic.

Therefore, about how Pi’s story would make you believe in God is nothing but an empty promise. I think we all have the right to be either optimistic or realistic at different times of our lives. Optimism helps us dream big, strive for more and recover from traumatic events, in extreme cases like what Pi had experienced. On the other hand, realism is what everyone needs to be at the same pace with the rest of the world.

And who says factuality is always “dry and yeastless”? Watching the sunset from a summit, finding your doppleganger who lives in a parallel reality, reading about stem cell research and simply getting excited for the future…. Reality can be just as moist and yeastful.