‘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.’
Life of Pi, Chapter 5
From the moment a young Pi Patel picks up a piece of chalk to inscribe his name, you get the sense, on reflection, that he is writing his destiny. He will no longer be ‘Piscine’, or ‘Pissing’ as his classmates used to call him. Now he is π (Pi) – the irrational number that measures the circumference of a circle and continues to infinity. He puts the first building block into place – to create order in a world of chaos.
The plot of Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, is simple and unambiguous. We learn of a young boy (Pi Patel) growing up in the South Indian city of Pondicherry. His father owns the local zoo – which opens his son to a whole world of animal species at his feet. His mother, a practising Hindu, introduces religion to the boy – who no sooner integrates Islamic and Christian belief into his worldview. After a political uprising in India, the father decides to move the family to Canada – and take the animals with them overseas. A few days after departing, their ship sinks in the Pacific Ocean. Aboard a lifeboat, Pi is cast adrift – sharing his compact space with a 450-pound Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker. Here, he must brave the elements and learn to tame the carnivore before it devours him for lunch.
You only have to turn on the news to see that we live in a world of chaos: War, the Climate Crisis, economic instability, famine – the list goes on. Even in our own daily lives there are numerous conflicts and struggles we face. Everybody wants freedom and never has freedom been more accessible than it is today – yet we remain miserable. We view ourselves as self-determined beings capable of anything – yet we feel helpless. So, what is the solution? Life of Pi presents it in two defining images – that of the Zoo, and of Religion.
‘Well-meaning but misinformed people think animals in the wild are “happy” because they are “free”. […] The life of the wild animal is simple, noble, and meaningful, they imagine. Then it is captured by wicked men and thrown into tiny jails. […] This is not the way it is.’
‘Animals are territorial. That is key to their minds. […] In a zoo, we do for animals what we have done for ourselves with houses: we bring together in a small space what in the wild is spread out. […] A good zoo is a place of carefully worked out coincidence: exactly where an animal says to us, “Stay out” with its urine and other secretion, we say to it, “Stay in” with our barriers. Under such conditions of diplomatic peace, all animals are content, and we can relax and have a look at each other.’
Life of Pi, Chapter 4
The image of a zoo therefore becomes a symbol of order – a place where wild animals and humans can co-exist. A zoo speaks to the necessity for boundaries in life – to create an ordered and harmonious world, and to protect us from potential harm. It’s a philosophy that makes you rethink the concept of freedom itself. Many see it as freedom to pursue and indulge all your trivial desires and whims. What the novel points to is that true freedom is freedom from all these things, so that you can enjoy a contained and more fruitful existence.
Once Pi is cast adrift on the lifeboat, the story revisits the image of the Zoo. Here, he is surrounded by a vast ocean, a symbol of chaos and the unknown. The lifeboat itself is an inverted representation of the zoo – with nothing separating Pi and the Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker, other than a sheet of tarpaulin. Within this shared space, the Tiger is too, a symbol of chaos and danger. In a desperate situation, Pi draws on his knowledge to replicate conditions in a zoo: he sets limits and boundaries, he creates a hierarchy and ultimately, he tempers the forces of chaos.
‘A part of me did not want Richard Parker to die, because if he died, I would be left alone with despair, a foe even more formidable than a tiger. If I still had a will to live, it was because of Richard Parker.’
Life of Pi, Chapter 57
A psychological reading lends itself to viewing the Tiger as a physical manifestation of the inner darkness, struggle, and violence within Pi. It’s what Carl Jung referred to as the ‘shadow’ – something that must be confronted and properly integrated into the individual. Pi deploys no end of tactics and tricks – he marks out his own territory on the boat, creates a separate raft to fish and further protect himself, he rewards Richard Parker’s good behaviour with treats and responds to bad behaviour with shouts, whistling and the threat of violence. What this suggests is that by taming the tiger, Pi is bringing his internal life into proper order. Only this way can he make a companion of Richard Parker, endure his hardships, and live a full existence.
‘I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.’
Life of Pi, Chapter 4
It’s common practice in more secular cultures, to regard Religion as a straitjacket – as an impediment to expressing one’s freedom. Today, there is an obsession with freedom and challenging the status quo. Any Religion presenting a structure, set of rules or a truth that is absolute – is widely condemned by atheists who see such doctrine as being antiquated and ultimately restrictive. To some, it’s much more attractive to simply throw the shackles off and live as you see fit. Life of Pi insists that we see through this way of thinking – that much like how a zoo creates order between wild animals and ourselves, Religion can be used as a tool to create order in one’s life. Aboard the lifeboat, Pi is offered a more transcendent sense of freedom because he submits to a higher power.
The novel argues that a life of boundaries, of limits with a path to transcendence is the way to combat the inevitable tragedies and forces of evil in life. People ask themselves ‘what is the meaning of life?’. Perhaps it is that meaning lies in the eye of the beholder. What is a meaningful life if it isn’t one of intention, of discipline and of self-designed borders to create definition?
‘I was certain it was an illusion that a few blinks would make disappear.’
‘The island was not an island in the conventional sense of the term.’
Life of Pi, Chapter 92
This theme is expanded upon once Pi and Richard Parker land on a mysterious island, made of algae and tree roots. It offers them both an all you can eat buffet and resembles a floating garden of Eden, if that garden were inhabited exclusively by mindless meerkats! The island is a sort of boundless paradise, removed from the constraints of the civilised world. Upon arrival, Pi thinks it is somewhere he could spend a lifetime – not unlike Robinson Crusoe. However, things take a turn when he makes an unsettling discovery. The island was not what it seemed: It was an illusion, an image of freedom as we see it, that offered initial pleasure and respite, but with the capability to rot its inhabitants to their core.
Life of Pi contains echoes of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ – a novel which reinvented the sea-voyage narrative, as a battle, not exclusively between man and the stormy seas, but between man and the restless conflict that lies within himself. While religious faith is central to Yann Martel’s story, the symbolism of the Zoo also encourages us to ask deeper questions of ourselves: What limits do we need to create in our lives to experience a greater sense of freedom? What boundaries do we need to set to keep the forces of evil at bay? What are the tigers that we need to tame?
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