઼ ϲ ੼ ฯ र ቑ ̂ ጯ
高雄師大學報 2015, 39, 1-12
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」
：
一則有關生命之不朽神話
許惠芬 1
摘
要
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」是 Yann Martel 於 2002 年所寫的奇幻小說，內容敘述 16
歲的印度少年 Pi，遭遇船難後和老虎一起在救生艇上漂流 227 天獲救的故事。本文
旨在以坎伯的神話觀點，解讀此小說乃探討生命意義之作，暗喻生命的痛苦和救贖。
Pi 是每一個人的原型，他的旅程是我們每個人的生命之旅。
本研究內容首先引述坎伯的神話理論，再以此為基礎來分析小說的寓意，分成 3
部分探討。第一部分闡釋示海洋的寓意，第二部分探討老虎的複雜角色，第三部分解
析神祕小島的意義。大海意指生命之存在受到限制與繫縛不能自主；老虎代表恐懼，
是邪惡及神秘的力量；小島是誘惑及慾望之象徵。本研究認為，此小說不只是引人入
勝的冒險故事而已，它是人生困境及潛能的寓言。能看穿生命的本質，就能讀出 Pi
的冒險所蘊含的弦外之音。
關鍵詞：迷思、隱喻、英雄原型、生命意義
投稿日期：2015/06/10；接受日期：2015/12/14
1
國立台中科技大學應用英語系講師
2 高雄師大學報
第三十九期
Life of Pi: A Timeless Myth on Life
Hui-fen Hsu*
Abstract
Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel written by Yann Martel in 2002. It depicts how
a 16-year-old Indian boy survives a shipwreck by drifting on the lifeboat with a Bengal
tiger for 227 days. The purpose of this paper is to explore the deep meaning of this book by
interpreting it as a myth about the meaning of life. With Joseph Campbell’s mythic
perspective as the theoretical framework, this novel can be read as a metaphor for life with
its struggles and redemption. Pi is an archetypal person and his journey is the journey of
life.
The contents of this paper are divided into three parts. It begins with a brief
introduction to Campbell’s mythic theory, on which the textual analysis is based and
further divided into three parts. The first part illustrates the symbolic meaning of the sea.
The second part analyzes the complex role of the tiger. The third part explores the
poisonous island. The sea on which Pi drifts symbolizes the universal human condition of
limitation and unpredictability. The tiger functions as a power of evil and mystery
provoking fear in life. The island is temptation itself, symbolizing greed and desire. This
research will prove that Life of Pi is not just an intriguing survival story; it is an allegory of
human predicament and potentialities. To read beyond the surface meaning of Pi’s
adventure is to see through the nature of human life.
Keywords: Myth, metaphor, hero archetype, life meaning
Submitted: 2015/06/10; Accepted: 2015/12/14
*
Lecturer, Department of Applied English, National Taichung University of Science Technology
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」：一則有關生命之不朽神話 3
Introduction
Yann Martel is a Canadian writer who got international literary reputation in 2002 with the
publication of Life of Pi after his previous unsuccessful works. This prize-winning book was adapted
into a much acclaimed 3D film by director Ang Lee in 2012. Pi is a 16-year-old Indian boy embracing
three religions: Hinduism, Catholicism and Islam. He changes his name from Piscine to Pi because his
schoolmates often tease the similar pronunciation between “Piscine” and “pissing.” Pi’s name has
symbolic meanings. For one thing, Pi is the 16th letter of the Greek alphabet, which corresponds to
Pi’s age. It’s also a mathematical term for 3.14 or 22/7, and 227 is the number of days he endures the
ordeals on the sea. Political turmoil forces his family to leave India for Canada. The cargo ship sinks
on the Pacific and Pi is the sole survivor. He tells the investigators that a zebra, hyena, orangutan and
tiger are on the lifeboat with him. The hyena quickly devours the zebra and orangutan, and is in turn
eaten by the tiger. Pi is left alone with the tiger named Richard Parker, so dominating it is the only
way he could survive. And he succeeds in controlling Richard Parker by offering it food and water,
establishing himself as a circus master to tame the wild animal. A subtle relationship thus develops
between him and the tiger, one that is made up of love and fear. Pi’s lifeboat finally lands on the
Mexican coast. He is rescued and Richard Parker disappears into the forest.
Critical responses to the novel, compared with those of the film, are lukewarm, if not negative.
The critic James Wood ridiculed the shipwreck conventions in this book, like the desperate search for
food and water, the sighting of a passing ship and a brief respite on a tiny island (“Credulity”).Wood
was not the only critic to refuse it a big applause. It was regarded as merely an “edge-of-seat
adventure” (Jordan), or a novel of “proposition” and “conjectures” failing to achieve the initial
promise to make readers believe in God (Clements). Martel’s assertion of the same operation of
religion and novel by using Coleridge’s phrase “suspension of disbelief”1 was also problematized
(Cole). Indeed, the story itself requires the very “suspension of disbelief.” A man and a tiger may be
unlikely to coexist, and an acid island may be botanically impossible. But the surface meaning can be
transcended and endowed with something higher and nobler. This is what this research aspires to
achieve---to analyze it as a myth about the meaning of life. Pi is an archetypal person and his journey,
like the mythological hero’s adventure, reveals the truth of life. Put in the perspective of Joseph
Campbell’s mythic theory, the story itself is a metaphor for human existence, not merely a
bildungsroman within a specific time and place. Pi’s story is not a unique experience but points to
collective consciousness existent in timeless myths.
1
“Suspension of disbelief” has proved to be an enduring phrase in literary criticism. It was first formulated by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the work Biographia Literaria to theorize how aesthetic truth resides in the
descriptions of the impossible: “to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and semblance of truth
sufficient to procure for those shadows of the imagination that willing suspension of disbelief for the
moment” (321-2). The “semblance of truth” is the aesthetic truth that surpasses the limits of factual reality.
And the credulity generated in readers by literary works is only temporary, just “for the moment.”
4 高雄師大學報
第三十九期
I. Mythic Theory by Joseph Campbell
Recognized as a leading authority on mythology, Joseph Campbell is best known for writing The
Hero with a Thousand Faces. In this major work, he identifies the general pattern of adventures that
most heroes undergo: departure from the everyday world, initiation into a dark and mysterious state of
awareness through trials and ordeals, and a triumphant return in which the gifts of this experience are
bestowed upon humanity. Examples of this heroic cycle can be found in the wealth of knowledge that
Buddha brought to the Orient, the commandments that Moses brought back to the Occident, and the
fire that Prometheus stole from Heaven to the Greeks. The three main stages of separation-initiationreturn are further elaborated as follows.
For the stage of departure, a dilemma occurs in the hero’s life and causes stress. Then, something
crucial happens, forcing the hero to face the change. Fearing the unknown, the hero tries to flee the
adventure, however briefly. According to Campbell, the refusal to take the adventure is essentially the
hero’s refusal to give up his own interest (62). It means his unwillingness to forego his present system
of ideals, virtues and goals. Yet, this attempt to fix and secure the old values turns out futile. Later,
some spiritual guide will appear, giving the hero equipment or advice that will help on the journey. Or
the hero reaches within to a source of courage and wisdom. Fully prepared, the hero now commits to
leaving the ordinary world and entering a new region or condition with unfamiliar rules and values.
The second stage is the hero’s initiation. This is the part when the hero enters a wonder world and
confronts death or faces his greatest fear: “Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a
dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials”
(97). Aided by the supernatural helper he meets before his entrance into the region, he survives the
threat of death and comes to a new life: “the agonies of the ordeal are readily borne; the world is no
longer a vale of tears but a bliss-yielding, perpetual manifestation of the Presence” (148).
The last stage is hero’s return. He may have a magic flight form a deadly threat, then cross the
return threshold by assistance from without, and return with elixir, something valuable to transform
the world: “At the return threshold the transcendental powers must remain behind; the hero
re-emerges from the kingdom of dread. The boon he brings restores the world” (5). The Orient, in
Campbell’s perception, has been blessed by the boon brought back by Gautama Buddha---his
wonderful teaching of the Good Law, just as the Occident has been blessed by Moses’ Decalogue (35).
Overall, the archetypal hero’s path involves the leaving of one condition and the finding of a rich
source. His adventure culminates in the illumination he gets from the trials and his triumph lies in the
bringing back of his wisdom to benefit his society. Essentially, there is only one archetypal mythic
hero whose life has been replicated over ages, the so-called “monomyth” (Power of Myth, 136). Pi can
be interpreted as one of the heroes. The mythic theme of a hero’s quest finds embodiment in his
struggle for survival and redemption.
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」：一則有關生命之不朽神話 5
II. Textual Analysis
Pi is the archetypal hero undergoing the transformation of consciousness through his adventure.
He leaves India for Canada to seek a better life. This is hero’s call for adventure. The ship sinks on the
Pacific Ocean, pushing him into the realm of danger and mystery. He meets with harsh trials,
overcomes them and survives with the help of the supernatural aid, which is his faith in God. This is
hero’s initiation. After he is rescued, he brings back to the human world a new consciousness begotten
from the trials. This is hero’s return. The final boon is his mystic union with the supreme power. Pi’s
journey is the typical hero’s journey, which is also a metaphor of life. Interpreted in terms of
metaphoric connotations, this novel yields greater significance. The sea, tiger and island are the
principal images constituting this mythic allegory. The sea is the dark and mysterious sphere where
challenges abound. The tiger and island are the threat and temptation that hinder him from returning.
All the three images can be transcended to point to something higher and deeper. The sea may be read
as a metaphor of human life, the tiger as fear and the island as desire. Fear and desire are two main
obstacles preventing people from realizing their potential. Pi is every man drifting on the sea of life
and yearning for the land of peace and safety. To reach the land, fear and desire should be removed,
just as the mythic heroes have to slay monsters to return to the human world. The mythic
interpretation of Life of Pi endows it with a profound meaning as remarked by Campbell regarding a
hero’s adventure: “Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own
existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world” (Power of Myth,
123).
A. The Sea
The crossing over of the ocean to the safe and secure Farther Shore beyond is the central image
in Buddhist texts (Conze and Horner 83). This “ocean” is the ocean of “samsara,” a ceaseless circle of
birth and death where the great populace is entrapped. To cross over this ocean of life, a raft or boat is
a necessary tool. In Oriental religion, the sea is a symbol of suffering and sorrow. That a human being
is born into this world is comparable to the dropping of Pi’s lifeboat onto the sea. A life of drifting
thus begins, characterized by inconstancy and limitations. Allegorically speaking, Pi’s drifting
symbolizes the loss of autonomy over the external situation. Pi is dominated by ocean currents, just as
human vision and action are determined by the space and time. His is a universal human condition, a
puppet manipulated by exterior forces: “What was the point of plotting a course if I could not act on
it? . . . so I drifted. Winds and currents decided where I went. Time became distance for me in the way
it is for all mortals---I travelled down the road of life” (Martel, Life of Pi 244). Pi’s reflection indicates
the truth of human existence. The mortals are not free to act on their own. The currents, like the
external condition, are beyond their control. Born into the sea of life, people are all a castaway,
“perpetually at the center of a circle,” and “caught in a harrowing ballet of circles” (Martel, Life of Pi
269). Manipulated by the pairs of opposites, they are powerless to quench the desires generated in this
6 高雄師大學報
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material world. As Pi recollects, “[w]hen it is light, the openness of the sea is blinding and frightening.
When it is dark, the darkness is claustrophobic” (Martel, Life of Pi 269). The sea is the outside world
which determines humans’ fickle existence. When it is hot, Pi is parched and wishes to be wet, yet
when it rains, he is nearly drowned and wishes to be dry (Martel, Life of Pi 273). Doomed to be
caught in such opposites, people search for lasting happiness and satisfaction in vain. Pi enacts the fact
that worldly “happiness” is only a transitory sensation, unstable and changing all the time. His
happiness is no more than a relief of pain instead of an absolute entity. An individual may feel happy
at a certain moment, but the factors that contribute to the feeling of contentment are in process of
change. Once one of the factors changes, one’s happiness ends. That explains Pi’s longing for the
coming of day after long exposure to darkness and vice versa. Neither darkness nor light is soothing or
comforting in itself. Pi’s feeling of happiness is transitory and relative as it arises from the lessening of
pain and thus lacks autonomy. Buddhist Master Tsong-kha-pa illustrates this concept well: “All
compounded phenomena are dependent-arising. Anything that is a dependent-arising is not
autonomous because it is produced in dependence upon causes and conditions. These things all lack
autonomy. Therefore, there is no thing which has self, that is, intrinsic nature” (3:760).
The sea is significant in conveying this concept of inconstancy and unfixed entity. The transitory
and changeful essence of human existence finds expression in the multiple forms of the sea as
observed by Pi. The sea, in Pi’s eyes, “roared like a tiger,” “whispered in your ear,” “clinked like small
change in a pocket,” “thundered like avalanches,” “hissed like sandpaper,” while sometimes it became
“dead silent” (Martel, Life of Pi 272). From the sea, Pi perceives the impermanent nature of all
phenomena. As the present moment is always different from the previous one, all things are subject to
change and dissolution. The sea conveys the undeniable fact of life: “Everything suffered. Everything
became sun-bleached and weather-beaten. We perished away. It happened slowly, so that I didn’t
notice it all the time. But I noticed it regularly” (Martel, Life of Pi 300). The decaying nature of things
is the feature of life. Pi’s insight echoes Shakespeare’s famous lines in Tempest: “The cloud-cappʼd
towʼrs, the gorgeous palaces, / The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit,
shall dissolve, / And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, / Leave not a rack behind” (IV. i. 1883-87).
Life is like the “insubstantial pageant,’’ doomed to fade and decay, leaving not a trace. The sea brings
to Pi the enlightening message as delivered long before by Shakespeare’s Prospero. The landing on the
Mexican coast ends Pi’s journey, symbolizing the death of a lifetime full of illusion and sorrow, and
the beginning of a new life.
On the sea, Pi suffers from the loss of family and the threat of death, a doomed fate common to
each individual life. His ordeals represent the mass of people lacking autonomy over their
surroundings, but with a free will to choose what to believe. Pi chooses faith, denouncing doubt as a
hindrance to progress: “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a
means of transportation” (Martel, Life of Pi 36). Doubt is a great obstacle to spiritual growth and
heroic action. In an interview, Martel himself emphasized the importance of faith. Even in period of
want, he insisted that people be driven by art and religion, which are the engines of life (“Interview”).
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」：一則有關生命之不朽神話 7
Pi is a fictional character to embody Martel’s concept of faith. Without the mystic experience of union
with the universe, he cannot have a strong belief in the existence of the supreme power. Without the
faith of God’s loving kindness and protective power, he cannot survive. The sea is not only the source
of suffering but of redemption. The throes of unremitting suffering make Pi turn to God. The lower he
sinks, the higher he aspires. The more extreme the suffering is, the more steadfast his faith becomes,
and herein lies his redemption.
B. The Tiger
Pi and Richard Parker2 are two sides of the same being, with the tiger serving as the boy’s
substitute ego. The tiger is not merely the animal saved by Pi during the shipwreck; it points to
something deeper and mysterious. “The Tyger,” a poem by William Blake, expresses the awe at the
mystery of creation and God’s inscrutable will power: “Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of
the night; / What immortal hand or eye, / Could frame thy fearful symmetry?” And the two lines, “Did
he smile his work to see? / Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” further question God’s intention
to make the good and evil, innocent and experienced coexist in this universe. Life of Pi, as Tim Adams
remarked, asks readers to find reference point in Blake. The aesthetic beauty and fearsome power of
Blake’s tiger echoes Pi’s Richard Parker, whose role in the novel leaves fertile space for interpretation.
According to Pi’s story, the tiger is his sole companion during this adventure: “[I]t was Richard
Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start
with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose” (Martel, Life of Pi 204). He even claims that
“[I]t’s the plain truth: without Richard Parker, I wouldn’t be alive today to tell you my story” (Martel,
Life of Pi 207). The tiger keeps him from thinking too much about his tragic circumstances and pushes
him to go on living. The presence of the tiger keeps his mind busy, as he is always fighting for his
authority over it. It is this busyness that makes him survive. The tiger and the boy wage a terrible
battle for power and status throughout this adventure. The lifeboat becomes the circus ring where he
manages to tame and control the wild animal. Yet, the boundary of master and servant is blurred at the
end. The overlapping of Pi and tiger’s identity is implied in Pi’s confession of how he eats like
Richard Parker:
If I got to be so indiscriminate about what I ate, it was not simply because of
appalling hunger, it was also plain rush. It came as an unmistakable indication to me
of how low I had sunk the day I noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that I ate like
2
The choice of the name “Richard Parker, ” according to Yann Martel, is the result of a triple coincidence. One
is the 1884 lifeboat case in England. It’s about a cabin boy killed and eaten by three other survivors during a
shipwreck, who fed on his body and blood until a ship appeared and rescued them. The case went to the court
and the captain was found guilty, for cannibalism is immoral, an improper way for human beings to treat one
another (Sandel 31-3). Another is a novel written by Edgar Allen Poe in 1837. It’s about a shipwreck and the
two survivors ate a third man called Richard Parker. The other also involved a foundered ship in 1846, on
which there were deaths and cannibalism, one of the victims being Richard Parker. Martel concluded by
saying that “So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something. My tiger found his name. He’s a
victim, too---or is he?” (“How Richard Parker Came to Get His Name”)
8 高雄師大學報
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an animal, that this noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the
way Richard Parker ate.
(Martel, Life of Pi 284)
There are some other clues from the novel to prove that Richard Parker is Pi’s alter ego. Throughout
the journey, Pi is all alone without a tiger aboard: “I looked out at the empty horizon. There was so
much water. And I was all alone. All alone [my own emphasis]” (212). The two words “all alone”
reveal the fact that the tiger is an imaginary creature. Pi once called himself the “top tiger,” who
claimed his territory by splashing his urine on the tarpaulin and later smelt a sharp, musky smell of
urine coming from the tiger. Here, Pi and the tiger are one and the same. Being gluttons for anything
resembling food, both become constipated. Together, they kill a man and eat his organs. Near the end
of the journey, they become blind simultaneously.
Richard Parker is the indispensable factor of Pi’s survival. It represents the dark power of
savagery and cruelty to threaten Pi’s humanity. Hunger and thirst transform Pi from an animal-caring
vegetarian to a cruel killer. As he confesses, “when your life is threatened, your sense of empathy is
blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival” (Martel, Life of Pi 151). To avenge his mother’s
death, he kills the murderer, the French cook, and eats his organs. The killing of the cook is the crucial
moment when the imaginary tiger appears as Pi’s another self. The ferocious and beastly power, once
released, cannot be stopped. The animal instinct is illustrated in the scene Pi murders the cook: “A
knife has a horrible, dynamic power; once in motion, it’s hard to stop. I stabbed him repeatedly”
(Martel, Life of Pi 391). Based on Pi’s first story, the tiger lay hidden under the tarpaulin for three days
before it launched the attack. The bestiality in human nature, long dormant in his psyche, waits for a
release switch to attack the bright side of humanity. The cook’s butchering of his mother forces out
Pi’s bestiality and turns his adventure into a new course. He suffers a great deal from the conflict
between the survival necessity and humanitarian instinct. His temporary relief of hunger depends on
the killing of other creatures, which brings everlasting trauma to him:“I was now a killer. I was now as
guilty as Cain” (Martel, Life of Pi 231). The burning desire for survival and the consequent evils are
imprinted on Pi’s mind just as the mark of murder is branded on Cain’s forehead. The image of
Richard Parker will prey on his mind forever. The analogy of Cain and Pi indicates the mythic motif
of killing and sacrifice. As Campbell remarks, life is a terrible mystery in its very essence and
character, as life must live on other lives by killing and eating (Power of Myth 65). The tiger is a
necessary evil for Pi’s survival, and also a symbol of threat and fear.
Hinduism adds another allegorical meaning to the role of the tiger. Hindu theology elevates the
tiger into a symbol of divinity because Shiva, the Hindu God, has the image of a “yogi-ascetic clad in
a tiger skin” (Smith 141). As Shiva adopts contradictory roles of being ascetic and erotic, so Pi sees
his double self of humanity and bestiality through the tiger. Hindu cosmology is made up of three
main forces---Brahma creates, Vishnu protects and Shiva destroys, each representing activity, light
and darkness (Smith 139-40). Vishnu is the cohesive principle tending toward light and center while
Shiva is the centrifugal principle fleeing the center and moving toward darkness. Brahma is the
equilibrium of these two opposing forces. Like the trinity in Christianity, Hinduism features the three
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」：一則有關生命之不朽神話 9
main gods with the attempt to define the universal laws of existence. Pi’s better story is grounded in
this cosmological framework. The tiger is the dark force of Shiva, challenging the human and light
part of Vishnu, the great deity Pi worships. The two opposing forces wage a persistent war during his
hardships. The beastly power of cannibalism poses a serious threat to the rational side of humanity.
Vishnu and Shiva are the irreconcilable opposites in Hindu cosmology just like the relationship
between Pi and the tiger. The two must achieve the state of harmonious equilibrium.
Caste system also has something to do with the tiger. According to Louis Dumont’s sociological
study, caste system springs from the opposition between pure and impure. The pure and impure must
be kept separate and this separation is the framework that decides the social structure (Smith 83).The
individual must submit and conform to the hierarchy of society. Pi is well adapted into the hierarchical
Indian society where each individual has his own place. Such an ideology is reflected in his animal
story. The pure and the impure occupy the different positions on the lifeboat. He, the rational human
being, is the acknowledged Alfa master while the tiger, the impure beast, occupies the lower position.
But still, each creature in his place must contribute to the structural universe: “The animal in front of
you must know where it stands, whether above you or below you. Social rank is central to how it leads
its life” (Martel, Life of Pi 55). Pi’s story is bound up with his ideological value where the social order
is maintained and cosmological harmony is achieved. He and the tiger symbolize not only the light
and dark force of the universe but also the proper position of each individual in the hierarchical
society. As a Hindu, Pi always knows his place in the universe: “I owe to Hinduism the original
landscape of my religious imagination, those towns and rivers . . . deep seas where gods, saints,
villains and ordinary people rub shoulders, and in doing so, define who and why we are” (Martel, Life
of Pi 63). Every creature, either gods, humans or animals, is inseparably intertwined in Pi’s world.
This embodies the essence of Hinduism, which endows all living things with divinity.
C. The Island
The poisonous island where Pi stays for several days is botanically impossible in the Japanese
investigators’ eyes. According to Pi, the mysterious island has a bountiful supply of food and water.
But the temporary relief in the daytime becomes a horrible threat at night, because the whole island
turns acid and carnivorous then, devouring any creature coming near its ground. Without the discovery
of human teeth wrapped in leaves, Pi would choose to stay there forever. While the Japanese officers
deny the existence of such an island from the scientific perspective, the aesthetic view validates it. In
the author’s note of this novel, Martel advocated the use of fiction to transform reality to bring out its
essence(vi). In other words, factual reality should be twisted so that the essence of truth can be
revealed. This view echoes Coleridge’s “suspension of disbelief,” which is to highlight the aesthetic
truth conveyed by literary works. A metaphoric reading of this island is essential to bring out the
aesthetic and subjective truth harbored in Pi’s mind.
From mythic perspective, the island may be regarded as the greatest temptation in the hero’s
journey. The unlimited food, water and shelter are the material comfort that gratifies human desires.
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Meerkats, the main creatures on the island, are either “nibbling at the algae” or “staring into the
ponds” to bring ashore dead fish (Martel, Life of Pi 337). They spend their days consuming foods
collectively: “Meerkats were jumping up and down in a state of great ferment. Suddenly, by the
hundreds, they began diving into the pond. There was much pushing and shoving as the meerkats
behind vied to reach the pond’s edge. The frenzy was collective” (Martel, Life of Pi 336-7). Besides
eating, they take the upright stance collectively, standing in a huddle and gazing in the same direction.
In Florence Stratton’s opinion, this massive and frantic consumption reflects the commodification of
the modern society with the non-stop supply of goods and consumption. It is the spirit of consumerism
that urges people to work hard, aim high, win and succeed. The devotion to work and a higher
standard of living has become a religion, calling for sacrifice through long hours of work and offering
its blessings through commodities (Hochschild 24). Meerkats embody the capitalist craze for
production and consumption, implying the evil of greed and gluttony.
Besides meerkats, algae are another feature of the island. They are delicious food in the daytime
but poisonous at night. They corrode travelers’ body and spirit in the long run, paralyzing them to a
life of ease and idleness instead of seeking a challenging life outside. As Pi reflects, “Bitterness welled
up in me. The radiant promise it offered during the day was replaced in my heart by all the treachery it
delivered at night” (Martel, Life of Pi 357). Without finding human teeth wrapped in layers of leaves,
Pi wouldn’t have left the island. Horrified by the solitary and wasted life on the island, Pi flees
without hesitation. The death of the past travelers rings the warning toll to Pi: “How many forlorn
hours in the arboreal city with only meerkats for company? How many dreams of a happy life
dashed? . . . How much loneliness endured?” (Martel, Life of Pi 357) This is an island that corrodes
body and corrupts mind, a microcosm of the capitalistic world characterized by material prosperity
and spiritual death. The “forlorn hours” in the “arboreal city” metaphorically refer to the solitude of
the modern man living in a society of mass production and consumption. The collective life and
consumption of the meerkats imply the common way of living, a ceaseless cycle of desire,
consumption and production. Living in such a material-oriented society, the sober and sensible men
have no choice but to flee. For them as for Pi, it is better to seek spiritual growth than to live idly and
die lonely.
The heroic action does not reside in physical valor but in mental bravery. Pi’s adventure on this
island exhibits the hero’s fortitude in the quest for a meaningful life. He is like Odysseus in the way
that both reject the temptation of physical comfort on a well-sheltered island. His determination to
leave is a courageous act, a breakthrough of human inclination to avoid danger. Both Pi’s acid island
and Odysseus’ lotus island symbolize human desire for materialistic comfort, only that Pi’s island
displays the most secular and materialistic form of human existence, where freedom and individuality
are eliminated (Stratton15). As a symbol of human corruption, Pi’s mysterious island is the modern
counterpart of Odysseus’ lotus island. The lotus eaters, who seemingly do no harm to Odysseus’ crew,
seduce them to stay there forever:“They fell in, soon enough, with Lotus Eaters, / who showed no will
to do us harm, only / offering the sweet louts to our friends---/ but those who ate this honeyed plant,
「少年 Pi 的奇幻漂流」：一則有關生命之不朽神話 11
the Lotus, / never cared to report, nor to return: / they longed to stay forever, browsing on / that native
bloom, forgetful of their homeland” (Lawall 305). Both islands are rich in food and poor in culture.
Either the lotus eaters or meerkats live a meaningless life of material gratification. The promise of
sufficient food and easy life is nothing but treachery to confine travelers to a slow death. Both islands
function as an archetypal image of temptation and desire. Soothing and comforting in a physical sense,
they corrupt the hero’s willpower to return back to human world. There is no lack of Pi’s poisonous
island in mythic tales and real life. It amounts to the dragon force to hinder heroes from achieving
their goal. The possibility of release depends on the triumph of spiritual yearnings over material
desires.
Conclusion
The metaphoric interpretation of Life of Pi deepens this novel as a timeless myth to convey the
imperfections of life and the possibility of salvation. As a typical hero, Pi moves out of the former
world that would have protected him into the unknown and dangerous realm. There, he encounters
trials and temptations. With courage and wisdom, he overcomes the challenges and returns to the old
world with a new consciousness. In this cycle of hero’s leaving and returning exists the mythic motif
of death and rebirth---the death of the old self and the rebirth of a new one. For the rebirth to happen,
the hero must undergo the darkest moment of life, which finds the best illustration in the tiger and
island. The sea on which Pi drifts is human life full of challenges. The tiger coexisting with Pi is the
dark human psyche, a bestial instinct of killing for survival. The poisonous island symbolizes the
enticing temptation of material comfort to lead heroes off the proper course. The three crucial
elements in Pi’s adventure are the fate of human life doomed to suffering, fear and desire. To weather
through them is to reach the shore of peace and safety.
Pi is a hero of all time; his life is the life of every human being. The crossing of the hero’s
threshold happens whenever old concepts are discarded for something new. To listen to the inner voice
is to follow the call for heroic adventure; to seek a challenging experience is to explore an unknown
field. There, supernatural aid may appear as the invisible hands to help remove obstacles in the nick of
time. After the darkest moment comes the light of salvation. The hero’s descent into the dismal state
of being is indispensable in his acquisition of a new consciousness. While this novel highlights the
universal human sufferings, it points to the radiant hope of faith to save and redeem. As a
mythological hero has his supernatural aid to slay monsters, humans have faith to ward off the
onslaughts of evil powers. Life of Pi is a myth to pay tribute to life. Suffering, fear and desire can be
overwhelming yet overcome as long as there is a strong will to believe and wait.
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