Chapter 92, and it description of Pi’s ordeal on the carnivorous island, forms the longest chapter in the novel and is one of the most perplexing and contentious elements of Life of Pi. When he is at his most desperate, Pi comes across this mile-wide mass of green algae, inhabited by thousands of meerkats, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When he is suffering the most, it provides him with the security and nourishment that he requires: food, water and shelter. He is able to recover and grow strong again.
However, as Pi recovers, he gradually begins to stop believing blindly in the island as a mere source of sustenance, and instead begins to explore and question. There is another side to the island: it is carnivorous, digesting any life that cannot escape by sundown. It is only when Pi discovers a human tooth from one of the island’s past inhabitants, it having been digested and turned into a flower, that Pi begins to see dark truth behind the island. The island provides sustenance, but not purpose. It can shelter people during a storm and give them what, in that moment, they need to survive, but in the long run it consumes them.
Some people see the island as a test of Pi’s faith. He could live out his days in relative safety, but without hope of becoming anything more, until he too decides to lie down and let the acidic juices consume him; or he could return to the suffering that life provides and have to endure that which seems unendurable in the hope of, one day, having the chance of living a life of meaning. The island appeases Pi’s physical comfort, but leads to spiritual death; if faith is too easy, then you will not be willing to brave the seas in search of something more meaningful and ‘true’.
The island is the last great trial of survival that Pi recounts for us, and there is no one interpretation of what it means and its significance. However, from a narrative perspective it forms the climax of the novel, and pushes the reader to the limit of what they are willing to accept in pursuit of the ‘better story’.
Does Martel use the island as a test of faith for Pi? What is the lesson that it is designed to teach him, and us?
Here is one potential interpretation of the island and what the different elements could signify:
- Pi’s lifeboat = faith
- Island = Religion
- Sea and Sun = harsh realities of real life, scrutinizing your faith
- Trees = clergy/priests/rabbis/imams, etc.
- Meerkats = followers of religion
If you attribute these meanings to each elements in the chapter, what does it now mean? What message does it now carry?
Can you provide a different interpretation?
Interpretations of the Island
There are many different ways of interpreting and using the the story of the carnivorous algae island. In a novel about storytelling, interpretation and the importance of finding meaning, Martel has, in this chapter, done something quite amazing: a episode that is intricately detailed, can be thematically linked to what is discussed before and after, but which defies concrete interpretation, so that ever person who reads it is left with a different sense of its meaning, purpose, importance and message. No one answer is correct: there is only interpretation based on reasoning and evidence.
Below are a collection of interpretations of the Island. It can be discussed in a paragraph or a full essay (there have been topics in the past that focus entirely on the island!). Below are some examples of potential responses:
Example 1
The island serves as the final trial of Pi’s faith, and shows how while faith, blindly or superficially accepted, can aid or stabilise us in the short term, it does not provide a viable long-term answer to deeper questions of meaning and purpose, and ultimately kills off a person’s spirituality and ability to see the “story” behind their world. The island is introduced in terms steeped in religious significance. It is “brilliantly green”, which Pi explicitly identifies as “colour of Islam”, and his first steps on the island, where although “illusion would not give” Pi still “did not believe”, mirrors the doubt that the disciple Thomas felt when witnessing Jesus’ wounds after resurrection. Likewise, Pi’s initial acceptance of the island and resultant joy is closely linked to his religious belief, with his “every hand raised up to God in praise” and his “heart exalt[ing] Allah”. However, in this early stages Pi’s focus on the island never drifts below the surface: even the algae that he eats is “sweet” and “delicious” on the outside, but “bitterly salty” and inedible closer to its core. In this manner the island is able to stabilise Pi’s and Richard Parker’s lives and provide nourishment when needed most. Notwithstanding this, having blind faith in the nature of the island is shown to be a dangerous and, ultimately, deadly mistake. The meerkats blindly follow the ways of the island. They accept the offerings of fish that are offered up without question (the offering of fish again contains biblical parallels, this time to Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 followers) and ignore its more sinister aspects. They follow a cycle of taking refuge amongst the trees to escape the harsh reality of the “carnivorous” nature of the island, much as people can blindly free to and take refuge in the institutions of a religion. The meerkats are well aware of the dangers, but eagerly accept and gorge themselves on the food, shelter and comfort that the island provides.
However, this form of faith that the island comes to symbolise is ultimately a shallow and self-destructive one. Pi realises that he will face a “lonely half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death” should he remain on the island. Denying him any higher purpose to his life, the island become a “murderous” entity, removing from him any hope of a higher purpose in life. For Pi, faith is not something that can exist in isolation, like the island, and nor should it be all-consuming. Such approaches become intensely limiting, as is seen in the fundamentalism of the “three wise men” of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity back in Pi’s home of Pondicherry. Pi’s faith and storytelling is not about creating fantasy, but about making a story “better” and enhancing an understanding of the world that still, at its core, remains honest and rooted in some form of reality. It is this desire to return to his belief in humanity that causes Pi to leave behind the comforts offered by the island, to turn his back on the shallow, unquestioning faith that it professes, and instead set of “in search of [his] own kind”, even if it will see him “perish”. It is in this manner that the carnivorous algae island comes to symbolise the final testing of Pi’s faith, his rejection of blind acceptance and reinforces his desire to search for the “better story” that lies behind their world.
Example 2
Martel engages with the reader in a gruesome discussion of how the “better story” can also help an individual face their guilt. Pi is forever traumatised by his apparent murder of a French chef, and “something in [him] died that day that has never come back to life. However, by assigning this murderous act to Richard Parker, once more Pi is able to go on living, despite terribly unforgiving circumstances. Pi’s “murderous island” may also be interpreted as a manifestation of this guilt, created to help him work through his feelings and return to strength. By creating a “free floating organism” outside of himself to representing the part of him that committed such a murderous deed, Pi can externalise these feelings and eventually leave them behind “in search of [is] own kind”, to avoid spiritual death on this “murderous island”. Here Martel demonstrates how creating and embracing a “better story” may allow an individual to go on.
More to come…
