Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

“It’s a question of brain over brawn,” (Martel 26) or rather in Martel's story it is a question of purpose over sheer nonsense. Organization is the main stage in all decent or better books. The author can use organization to their advantage but it can also cause a disadvantage. In, The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel the main character, 16 year old Pi Patel is an abnormal teen with even more abnormal daily activities. Pi’s life is constantly changing in his though his practice in Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Pi also show a special interest for zoology, most likely stemming from the fact that he grew up in the zoo. Growing up in the zoo taught him many important lessons. Lessons like feed a goat to a lion, and saying the most dangerous animal
in zoo is a human, as well learning the habits, feeding ways, and living conditions which would later save his life. As well as these many lessons in Pi’s life he stresses over his true name, Piscine Patel, more commonly pronounced as “pissing”. The tragedy of a name pushes Pi to the edge where he will walk up to the board the first day of class, draw a circle, write out his new name (Pi) and just to make sure everyone understands will write out clear as day three point one four and gave a basic lesson on geometry. When his life finally seems like it is going his way, young Pi learns he must leave everything he knew and move to a strange new county which he had knowledge about, Canada. The voyage will take him to new places and on adventures of life time; if only the boat hadn't sunken those things might have made up the story. Now Pi must survive knowing his family is dead, having lost his religion, and being stuck on a lifeboat with a 3 year old Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker. While the reader already knows Pi will make it out, how, is still unknown. The author's use of constant change in topics, really short chapters, and switching between topics helps the author to express the theme of Man vs Nature very nefariously.

Chapter 1, Part 1 is where the reader first meets the Pi, but instead of continuing to talk about his,
“Academic study and steady mindful practice of religion…”(Martel 4) the author quickly changes the topic to being about, “...three-toed sloth.”(Martel 4) The author's inability to stay on topic does not allow the author to send the message about man vs nature because the author simply does not express the topic on point without getting distracted.
Not only the constant change of topics hurts the author's ability to send his message but the really short chapters also play a detrimental disadvantage to the theme. In chapter 2 the author jumps forward in time, which happens a lot, but instead of elaborating on a particular reason for this the author adds it like a side note, having nothing to do with the current situation, and being completely ignored later. This single paragraph, 11 sentence mini story tells the reader about the future Pi. This not only gives away much information but it causes the reader to know that in man vs nature, man did not lose. The author tells that Pi, “lives in Scarborough...he launched forward.”(Martel 6) Not only do the short chapters not help the expression of the theme but rather hurt it, in the given quote is very obvious that there is also that constant change of topics. This off topic section does not do anything or even start to suggest the theme of man vs Nature but instead chooses to hurt the expression of theme by not even touching it. Not only were the constant change in topics and the really short chapters negatively impacting the expression of the theme but so is the constant change between current and future, as previously stated in last example. During chapter 11/12 the author changes tenses, commonly disliked among the grading system especially at the rate in which the author chooses to do it. The chapters start out in the current tense where the author explains about how “If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it, you would be amazed at the animals that would fall out” (Martel 25) ,and then
chooses to flip back into the future tense, where the author expresses “at times he (Pi) gets agitated.” The author's use of the change in tense prevents from the author being able to truly explain the theme of man vs nature in the novel, Life of Pi. Overall the author’s use of constant change of topics, really short chapters, and switching between tenses causes the author to unsuccessfully express the main theme of Man vs Nature.