Moral Values in the Life of Pi - Book Report/Review Example

Thesis: Pi’s Morality This novel cuts across various values within Pi’s life. The main perspective or topic sentence that seems to be outstanding is the element of Pi’s level of morality that is taken as being intact in one way or the other. So, the main the main points or thesis statement that this paper dwells on is on the aspect of integral morality that has been explicated by Pi. There is a claim that he had very intact moral values in his entire life simply because of his extensive strictness and critical analysis of various out-standing issues. He simply had his own personal principles regarding various life issues and had a capability of justifying his views in a very extensive, and comprehensive manner. This has been exemplified through how Pi handled various issues throughout his entire life as well as his stands and rational reasoning ability. First and for most, belief in God seems to be a major theme in this novel, and is viewed as being controversial in the reviews of this entire book. Throughout the story, Pi develops a sense of clear belief in God as well as the ultimate love for God. This is a kind of love that seem to be profound enough since it cuts across all the classical religious divisions, including Hinduism, Islam, and even Christianity. The aspect of atheism is a great agony that really bothers Pi, since such a mere decision towards lack of dire believe in anything or exertion of massive doubt in the existing belief systems should be taken as inexcusable from his point of view. This has been brought out clearly in the novel especially in a situation whereby Pi interrogates some of the atheistic Japanese officials to try and weight out the better perspective amongst the two systems (Martel, 54). So, Pi’s great devotion towards believe in one God is an outstanding part of this novel. This aspect however gets to be less prominent especially in the course of his life-time when his bodily and material requirements try to take over his spiritual needs. Regardless of all this, Pi seems to have stayed standstill against all those temptations that might have led his consciousness towards a little doubt in his level of belief in the ultimate God while struggling with most of his hardships. In turn, this element underscores the idea of pre-eminence of survival. The aspect of primacy or pre-eminence of survival is also one of the main themes in the epitome of this novel. This theme acts as a main test towards Pi’s level of belief as well as strictness towards some of the religious rule. For instance, his religion tends to forbid some of the foodstuffs such as meat. So, regardless of the situation, each and every believer shall be condemned if he/she went against such golden rule. So, Pi’s issue became a little bit tricky hence leading to great dilemma towards making out his stand. This was the time when they were accidentally trapped in the sea, and meat was one of the main foodstuffs that were available at the moment. The only option for Pi was to go against one of his religious beliefs by consuming it so as to relieve himself from starvation. Here, Pi seems to have been morally wrong in terms of religious perspective but at the same time he seems to have embraced a greater level of morality regarding the value of life to a greater extent. On the other hand, the true meaning of freedom brings in a sort of controversy in this entire novel, especially in a situation when Pi dismissed some of the people’s claims who argued against the existence of zoos as being cruel places for hindrance of animals’ freedom. He simply offers clear substantiation against this, by interrogating on the exact meaning of freedom. He claims that, an animal that is restricted in one way or the other is in the real sense not denied freedom. This is in the sense that, back in the cage such animals tend to receive almost all their needs such as water, food, and even shelter in the simplest and most un-stressful manner. This is unlike the situation affecting the other wild animals back in the parks whereby they are always in a constant move through various risks, hardships and uncertainties, simply because of search for such basic needs. So, for Pi those animals that are kept in the zoos should be considered as being free in nature, thereby altering slightly with the original meaning of freedom. This question on freedom also arises in a situation when Pi finds himself fighting for his own survival within the sea. He seemed to thrive without any form of conscientiousness to anybody else, he is in a situation that reflects no clear necessity of being anywhere within the world, since he is in perpetual form of motion; and has not yet been probably less free, for he should always be upholding his survival on top of any other thing. A good example of this perspective is that, he found himself in a position whereby he was even unable to make choices on whether to remain as a permanent vegetarian in life, since he is faced with a controversial decision of eating meat so as to ensure that he survives, unless otherwise. So, this is where Pi brings out his moral stand on the meaning of freedom in that, he reiterates on the primacy of survival in life as one of the great restriction of freedom, thus coming up with a new form of redefinition. Pi’s morality in terms of analysis of various issues has been dealt with clearly in the aspect of relativity of truth. He claims that there can be a sense of truth in various elements as well as concepts and believes, but the only thing that varies is their degree of variation. This aspect has been clearly highlighted in the last part of this novel whereby Pi tries to retell his part of the story to the Japanese officials in full, but later leaves them to make their own decisions as well as choices regarding the two of his life stories, since truth seems to be absolute and should be observed from all perspectives (Martel, 77). So, Pi believes that there can never be existence of an absolute truth in life if all the alternative choices are not critically analyzed. The other perspective that reflects on Pi’s intact nature of morality is regarding the aspect of science verses religion. This mainly occurred in a situation where Pi got admission in the University of Toronto to go and study the element of zoology and religion (Martel, 43). This is where he noticed that so many issues between science and religion tend to clash to a greater extent. This is due to the fact that scientists seem to be studying what is believed to be God’s creation and putting them in their own perspectives, for instance, defining how they ended up into existence. So, most of the scientists seemed to be atheists and they considered even Zoos as a temple. So, Pi harmonized his stand and analysis by claiming that there was no much difference from his own belief system, in that, he views them as worshipping science just the same way he worships God. Finally, Pi’s level of morality was also tested and analyzed through his meager loss of innocence through his life line. For instance, at the beginning of the story, Pi seemed to be very innocent in terms of so many things but this form of innocence is later affected by other detrimental factors. The main part whereby Pi started losing his innocence was when he was fighting for his entire survival at the sea, and many other controversial issues that came by within that time period. Even though Pi came across all these challenges that even led to loss of his innocence, he still maintained his sole stand in life thereby showing out how strong and intact his morality was. Works Cited: Martel, Yann. Life of Pi: A Novel. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Print. Read More