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Analysis Of Piscine 's Religious Beliefs

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An Analysis of Piscine’s Religious Beliefs in Relation to His Life
Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel explores the relation between religion and interpretation. The author creates an open door for the reader to digest the story in a number of manners causing it to be diverse. Not only is the audience compelled to be empathetic towards Piscine, but they ought to be altered spiritually and mentally due to this author’s agenda, and desired plan. This holistic route of understanding this story is purely a way of interpreting the world we live in. In this essay, I argue Yann Martel opened the door of interpretation when he used Piscine Patel’s story to encapsulate a plot that in turn would provoke readers to a state of transformation in …show more content…

This had to first be done through the acceptance of the story. Secondly, Martel wrote the story to then be interpreted by the readers. This is successfully done through leaving loose ends on particular areas in the story and forcing the audience to choose and decide what to believe.
The Life of Pi is situated on a fragile surface that is reliant on its reader to pick up the pieces through interpretation. The story is a puzzle, but if solved it changes everything. Furthermore, the main intent of Yann Martel is to cause some form of interpretation. What makes this difficult is the fact there is not one correct way to interpret this novel. Where does one start? To see the world of Piscine, one starting point is at the very beginning. The theme of life principles seems to carry throughout the entire story and this is what seems to guide his decisions. This includes his life principles, religious principles, and moral principles. As I said, it’s how you interpret it. However in this interpretation, the fundamental principle to focus on is his religious principles.

Religion as a Lifestyle
The author implemented every interesting detail concerning Piscine to further draw out the reading into Piscine’s life. Piscine’s first encounter with religious principles began with the statement: “we are all born like Catholics” (Martel 47). As an infant his mother took him to a temple and this is a possible reason for his deeply ignited

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