An Archetypal Perspective of Religion

Recently, I have read the book Life of Pi written by Yann Martel and I thought it was great and interesting. They have taken a controversial topic of religion and made it interesting for everyone to read it. In the text, they made it clear that many people do not believe in faith as much as we did before since science has developed. Many people find it ridiculous that God is the one that created the world even though it is scientifically proven it is not.

Pi recognizes every little part of his life as something that God has given him. “She came floating on an island of bananas in a halo of light, as lovely the Virgin Mary”, Pi sees the mother of Jesus in Orange Juice that also represents his own mother. Through the archetypal lens of Pi’s story, I noticed that every main part of the story resembles a religious symbol. Orange Juice and Pi’s mother share kind and caring characteristics which remind him of Jesus’s mother, beautiful and pure.

Pi's Mother

Orange Juice

Pi creates two different stories about his journey after being stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and he says one of them with animals and one with humans. While the one with the animals was about how all of them had killed each other leaving the tiger and Pi on the boat at the end. The other story had the cook who killed and ate the sailor and Pi’s mother and then Pi kills and eats the cook. In both stories, the characters were similar, for example, the mother was the orangutan and the cook was the hyena.

Pi, Tiger, Orangutan, Hyena, Zebra

Pi asked, “So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals”. Obviously, the answer is the story with the animals because it sounds better for animals to eat each other but when you hear people eating each other you would feel disgusted. But even though no one knows the truth of what is the actual story it does not mean that we cannot believe in either of the stories.

Pi’s archetypal narrative of these stories represents how he sees religious beliefs. I can see that he is trying to say that even though we cannot prove that religious faith and God is not real it does not mean that we do not have to believe in them. In my opinion, this is true because even though we have never seen God I do believe in God because I think faith gives us strength and hope to those who need help.

Theory with Most Insight on "Life of Pi"

In Life of Pi, I believe that the reader response theory helped me gain the most insight on the book because I did not notice the comparisons between the symbols of religion with what happens to Pi throughout his life. Throughout the book, he refers to God frequently and makes prayers frequently as well but I had not realized that everything he was doing was somehow connected to God or a part of a religion. It made me understand more of how we see the world in general versus how we should try to see the world.

From the reader’s response theory, I can interpret the information given and relate to my personal life. For example, my parents believe that it is only okay to have 1 religion or none but why is it that other religions cannot be accepted. Throughout the story, Pi uses different incidents to relate to different religions for example, “She came floating on an island of bananas in a halo of light, as lovely the Virgin Mary” (Martel 63) and “To take in green, after so much blue, was like music to my eyes. Green is a lovely colour. It is the colour of Islam” (Martel 141). This tells me that religions have been taken from nature and what we have seen is what makes the religions and gods which makes it logical to believe in religions.

The archetypal theory allowed me to discover new information and allowed me to connect this text with my personal experience with the world. Pi says, “I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion. Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are "happy" because they are "free”” (Martel 10). Pi shows the zoo as religion/god because many people mistake that animals are not happy in zoos because they are not free but even if they were in the wild they would still be restricted in the wild. This is like how religions are mistaken because people think that god is not real and the religious practices make no sense but really religions have practices that are taken from essential life skills. For example, the orange colour on boats are like the Hindu colour orange which portrays protection which is what the lifeboat is meant for.

These archetypal theories found in the book tell readers to look at the world in a different perspective rather than looking at it in the same perspective. It is trying to tell people to believe in things that are not really expected to happen because just because it did not happen it does not mean it will not happen.

Feminism in "Life of Pi"

After reading the third part of the book, Life of Pi, I have noticed that feminism theory helps show the importance of the characters in the story. Pi respects his mother and Orange Juice, the orangutan in the story because every time he refers to them he describes them in a respectful way. In the story when Pi saw Orange Juice he felt relieved and felt happy to see her despite all the problems had stranded in the middle of the ocean. Like this at the end of the story when Pi retells the story of the days he was stranded on the ocean but replaces the character of Orange Juice with his mother again making her mother look like the only comfort he had.

As Pi was from an Indian culture, his mother follows the typical role in the family, who plays a housewife and has no say in what decisions are being made in the family business or any family issues. During the end, Pi says “My mother was fighting an adult man. He was mean and muscular” (Martel 172) and in the case of the animals in the lifeboat, Orange Juice was killed by the hyena in which the hyena is the cook and Orange Juice was the mother. These show that both Orange Juice and Pi’s mother have calm and gentle characters and both are mothers who would do anything to save their child.

In the story, Pi’s mom plays the role of a housewife and does all the cooking, cleaning and taking care of the children while the father does the work meant only for “men” such as business work and making decisions for the family. Orange Juice plays the role of a mother who lives with her children and is a weaker creature compared to a male hyena. Also, in the story, there is Richard Parker, the tiger trapped on the lifeboat’s mother who was shot dead while trying to protect him from a hunter. All three of the mothers have similar characteristics that show bravery by trying to protect their children although all three of them died. When he changes the story with a cook, sailor and Pi's mother replacing the hyena, zebra, and orangutan, he compares the orangutan with Pi's mother showing that they have similar characteristics both being as women. 

In the text women’s lives are limited to everything that must be done at home, their lives do not pass their houses. In the text, they have not talked about any other female characters other than Orange Juice, Pi’s mother, and the tiger’s mother, which shows that there are only a few female characters that matter and make a difference to Pi’s life.

Women in the text do speak out for their opinions but therefore they end up getting killed. For example, "He killed her. The cook killed my mother. We were starving. I was weak. I couldn't hold on to a turtle. Because of me, we lost it. He hit me. Mother hit him. He hit her back. She turned to me and said, 'Go!' pushing me towards the raft” (Martel 172). This shows that the mother was trying to fight against the cook for hurting her child but as a result he kills her.

It is difficult for women at the period in India to have a say in the family decisions and when they tried they would always have to pay for what they had said.

"Life of Pi" through Archetypal Lens

Even though Pi does not seem like an epic hero that you would find in a typical adventure story, moments through his journey on the ocean shows that he has his moments of being a hero. He shows his heroism when he catches fish for the tiger. Like a hero, Pi demonstrates behaviour that is beneficial to others, in his case he makes sure to provide food for the tiger even though he knows that the tiger can kill him at any time. There is no real villain figure in Life of Pi but everything in the ocean went against him, there was a tiger that could kill him, food was scarce, water was not pure, he had no clothing, etc. It seems as if everything was his villain now. Pi frequently shows that in real life man is the real villain, for example “I realized something else: the hyena was the reason those sailors had thrown me into the lifeboat. They weren't trying to save my life. That was the last of their concerns. They were using me as fodder. They were hoping that the hyena would attack me and that somehow I would get rid of it and make the boat safe for them, no matter if it cost me my life” (Martel 62).

The boat in this story plays an important role in Pi’s survival, without it Pi could have died. The boat is coloured as orange which as Pi said was a significant colour in the religion which shows the boat as a god since god protects people. “It seems orange-such a nice Hindu colour-is the colour of survival because the whole inside of the boat and the tarpaulin and the life jackets and the lifebuoy and the oars and most every other significant object aboard was orange. Even the plastic, beadless whistles were orange” (Martel 76). As the whistle is orange it signifies that he could use it to call help when it is needed, this shows that the ties of religious hopes and strength serves as essential survival skills.

Lifeboat from "Life of Pi"

Later in the book I expect that Pi can overcome these challenges and is able to save himself from being stranded in the middle of the ocean. Through his journey, I expect that he will show bravery, intelligence, and strength as those are the basic abilities of an archetypal hero and how they travel in an archetypal journey. Although in the beginning Pi was more shy, religious, and gentle, throughout the journey he changes into a more strong, intelligent, and brave person in the middle of the book. As the book goes on his character develops into a more archetypal hero based character.

My Response to "Life of Pi"

I have read the book Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel is the story of a young boy who is stranded in the middle of the ocean on a lifeboat accompanied only by a tiger whom he forms a strong connection with. This young boy’s name is Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi as in the edible pie or mathematical term for 3.14. this young boy was religious and by religious, I mean that he practiced Hinduism, Christianity, and Islamism, he was not the most social kid at school but he had a lot of knowledge about animals as his father owned the Pondicherry zoo in Tamil Nadu.

As the Pondicherry zoo was not attracting customers the Pi’s family decided to close it down and sell their animals while they also moved to Canada. They went there on a ship along with the animals, unfortunately, the ship had sunk. Pi was thrown off by the workers on the ship saving him from drowning, he could safely get on the lifeboat but he was accompanied by a zebra, hyena, and an orangutan. Pi had thought that the tiger was still on the lifeboat but he was nowhere to be seen but I think later the tiger would turn up from inside the boat. Maybe later the tiger would kill the hyena, orangutan and the zebra and leave Pi to be there as he needs someone to serve it food.

As I was reading I noticed Pi said “But I'd seen that on other days and the ship hadn't sunk. A cargo ship is a huge and stable structure, a feat of engineering. It's designed to stay afloat under the most adverse conditions” (Martel 58). Then how is it that the ship sunk? And why didn’t the workers warn Pi’s family and release the animals into the lifeboats?

Pi often connects the zoos with gods, this helped me realize that the misunderstandings people have about zoos are like the way people misunderstand the concept of religion. People believe that zoos take away the freedom of animals and they would be free in the wild but they are still restricted by their survival needs and instincts. The same goes with the misunderstanding of how people see the practice of different religions as people think one is better than the other or neither religion makes sense.

As I was reading the book I noticed that Pi spoke a lot about religion in the first part of the book. The different practices of Hinduism he talks about reminds me of my religion and as I also have a Tamil background I can relate to them. An example, when Pi’s mother says “"Hmmm. I don't mean it that way. Listen, my darling, if you're going to be religious, you must be either a Hindu, a Christian or a Muslim. You heard what they said on the esplanade" (Martel 42). This reminds me of when my mother said that you can be a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim or even an atheist but you cannot be all of them. I have always wondered why they say that because respecting religions is considered a good habit but why is practicing all of them a bad habit.

Piscine Moritol Patel practices Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam