Life of Pi | Criticism

  • Establishing Faith Despite Opposing Realities: The Truth of Fiction in Life of Pi

    David Partikian is a freelance writer and a college English instructor. In this essay, Partikian discusses the idea that "unbelievable" tales—tales that defy logic—are an integral part of most religions. In order to have faith and believe in God, or the unknowable, we need to believe in stories that otherwise seem fictional, such as the biblical accounts of the Fall of Man and Jonah and the Whale, or the tales of the Ramayana. Life of Pi is similarly a tale that asks the reader to suspend disbelief and have faith; it is only through this suspension that a person is able to read “a story to make you believe in God.”

  • A Christian Parable

    Tamara Fernando is a freelance writer based in Seattle, Washington. In this essay she argues that Life of Pi can be read on one level as a Christian parable. The suffering and ultimate spiritual resurrection that Pi experiences parallel the suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and at the end of the novel, similar to Jesus, Pi offers his own parables about the meaning of faith.