Life of Pi: The Ending

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Life of Pi The Ending The Reader as Artist
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The Second Ending

• HyenaFrench Cook
• Orang-utanPis Mother
• ZebraChinese SailorTiger!

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Top Ten List the Ending of Life of Pi
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10.Pi and Richard Parker are psychological
doubles.
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• Pi Richard Parker are doubles.
• anthropomorphism and zoomorphism
• Pi is like an animal
• I descended to a level of savagery I never
  imagined possible (218).
• I noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that
  I ate like an animal, that this noisy, frantic,
  unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the
  way Richard Parker ate (249-250).
• Synchronicity between Pi Tiger
• We perished away (265). I began to imitate
  Richard Parker in sleeping an incredible number
  of hours (265). We were slow eaters now. . .
  . The ordeal had reduced us to skin and bones
  (267).
• Pi and Richard Parker have a conversation
  (273).
• Pi has an Indian accent and Richard Parker has a
  French accent together they embody history of
  India as French colony (275).

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9.The global allegory gives way to a
psychological allegory.
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• 8.
• But, the global allegory still lingers.

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7.There is allegorical confusion!
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7. There is allegorical confusion.

• 1. Pis adventure on the high seas with a tiger
  is an allegory about difficult marriage.2.
  Pis adventure on the high seas with a tiger is
  an allegory about psychological degeneration and
  fragmentation.3. Pis adventure on the high
  seas with a tiger is an allegory about
  postcolonial conflict, loss, diaspora,
  fragmentation, and reconciliation.4. Pis
  adventure on the high seas with a tiger is an
  allegory about religious faith, belief, and
  doubt.5. Pis adventure on the high seas with
  a tiger is an allegory about allegory the
  productive possibility of multiple overlapping
  stories.Do these allegorical readings work
  together successfully or awkwardly?

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• 6. What do we make of the meercat island?

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6. What do we make of the meercat island?

• How do we explain the meercat island in
  relationship to the novels allegories?
• Psychology light/darksuperego/id
  vegetarian/carnivorecivilised/savage visionary
  projection of Pis cannibalistic act.
• Global territory without foundation false
  homecoming cf. Odysseus and his false returns
• Marriage attempt at reconciliation vacation
  gone bad?
• Religion demands a leap of faith, another test
  of faith
• Allegory an authors imaginative excesses the
  readers are the meercats?

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5. The ending introduces interpretive
instability.

• Online interview on November 26, 2002 between
  readers and Martel
• Reader I believed it all, up until the island
  and the meerkats, and then my suspended disbelief
  started to wobble eastwards. Did you intend to
  create that effect in the reader? To see how far
  they would go?
• YM Yes, I did. I wanted to push the reader
  until he/she was forced to make some leap of
  faith. If the island didnt do it, then I hoped
  the second story would.

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4. The ending celebrates the instability of
reality and the freedom of imagination.Is
reality what we make it? Is imagination free?
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• 3. The ending recasts author-reader relations.

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• 2. Nothing but a number to complete my top ten
  list.

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• 1. The ending is a failure.

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God is a shorthand for anything that is beyond
the materialany greater pattern of meaning
 Yann Martel, online interview with Random
House