Life of Pi - the Better Story

Life of Pi - the Better Story

  • Submitted By: bubblzkiki
  • Date Submitted: 12/30/2008 10:35 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 848
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 7

Name: Vanessa Kaye
Teacher: Mrs. Kwon
Course: ENG 4UI
Date: December 8th 2008

The Better Story
In the novel Life of Pi, Pi Molitor tells a story in which he survives at sea for two hundred and twenty seven days with a four hundred and fifty pound Bengal tiger. When he reaches land, the Japanese transportation ministers do not believe the story. As a result Pi retells the story but instead of animals he used humans. Nevertheless the Japanese transportation ministers believe the animal story, which is the better story, despite their disbelief. Pi’s faith in God made him survive the journey on the Pacific Ocean. Without his faith and trust in God, he would have given up. One starts to lose faith in the better story simply because Pi gives another version of the story in part three. The fact that there is no evidence to justify anything that happened makes the readers lean more toward the human story. One needs to have faith in a higher being in order to make ordinary events less blunt. The more skeptical one gets, the weaker the faith therefore making it harder to let go and believe the better story.
The animal story sounds fictitious. When Pi tells the Japanese transportation ministers the animal story; it sounded make belief and imaginary. After the interview they concluded that they do not believe what Pi just told them.

Im sorry to say it so bluntly, we don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but you don’t really expect us to believe you, do you? Carnivorous trees? A fish-eating algae that produces fish water? Tree-dwelling aquatic rodents? These things do not exist.(Martel 326)

All these elements of the animal story seem imaginary because we don’t hear about such
things on a daily basis. Since people do not hear about such incidents, they choose to
assume that they are untrue. The minister’s question the details of Pi’s story to the point that they fail to believe the better story.
While reading the book, the reader...

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