Yann Martel's Life Of Pi
A practical application of the lessons in Life of Pi by Yann Martel
At least twice in Life of Pi, Pi Patel faces difficult circumstances and is able to emerge unscathed by dint of a type of storytelling.
In the first instance, Piscine Molitor Patel is being teased at school because his first name sounds like the word “pissing”. He takes matters into his own hands and, at his new school, introduces himself assertively and memorably at the beginning of each new class as “Pi”. He effectively restructures the reality of his situation by telling the ‘story’ of his name a different way, and “in this Greek letter … [he] found refuge,” he says.
This proves to be good practise for a later challenge. A few years later, due to extraordinary circumstances, Pi is shipwrecked and stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He tells two versions of a story: one in which his mother is beheaded in front of his eyes by a …show more content…
Imagine if someone takes my calculator off my desk and uses it without my permission. (The example is trivial by comparison to Pi’s ordeal, but possibly slightly more common.) This is the “dry, yeastless factuality” of the situation. Pi does not admire us if we simply accept this situation without imaginative response … we are not fully human if we do not use our imagination. And so we usually imagine a story. Usually we tell ourselves (and anyone who will listen), “He stole my calculator!” or “She betrayed me … abused my trust!” We make ourselves the victim, and, once we have had the sympathy that victimhood brings, we are left also with its helplessness. Yann Martel encourages us, I believe, to practice fabricating another version, the “better
At least twice in Life of Pi, Pi Patel faces difficult circumstances and is able to emerge unscathed by dint of a type of storytelling.
In the first instance, Piscine Molitor Patel is being teased at school because his first name sounds like the word “pissing”. He takes matters into his own hands and, at his new school, introduces himself assertively and memorably at the beginning of each new class as “Pi”. He effectively restructures the reality of his situation by telling the ‘story’ of his name a different way, and “in this Greek letter … [he] found refuge,” he says.
This proves to be good practise for a later challenge. A few years later, due to extraordinary circumstances, Pi is shipwrecked and stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He tells two versions of a story: one in which his mother is beheaded in front of his eyes by a …show more content…
Imagine if someone takes my calculator off my desk and uses it without my permission. (The example is trivial by comparison to Pi’s ordeal, but possibly slightly more common.) This is the “dry, yeastless factuality” of the situation. Pi does not admire us if we simply accept this situation without imaginative response … we are not fully human if we do not use our imagination. And so we usually imagine a story. Usually we tell ourselves (and anyone who will listen), “He stole my calculator!” or “She betrayed me … abused my trust!” We make ourselves the victim, and, once we have had the sympathy that victimhood brings, we are left also with its helplessness. Yann Martel encourages us, I believe, to practice fabricating another version, the “better