I just wanted to begin by saying that I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s responses to and approaches into Life of Pi.
This is my second time reading this particular text and I’m stuck, again, by the same reaction as I was the first time around. Like all of you my undergrad was in English Lit, and as you all know, there wasn’t a great deal of time for personal reading in the midst of an English Lit degree, but when I did find the time I would myself drawn towards texts that fit into the genre known as “magic realism.” So I read quite a bit of Tom Robbins where characters such as a tin can and a spoon head off together on an adventure with each other and are completely animate beings. When I read Life of Pi I am equally struck by the magical realism aspects of the text.
The exercise we did last class, where we drew our visualization of a particular image from the text… I really personally struggled with that because as soon as I find myself drawn into a world where tigers live on boats with boys and trees have fruit with teeth, I suspend all “rational” thought and allow myself to blur the lines between what is possible and what is not. I don’t know if many of you do the same (suspend analysis or preconceived notions of what is real or possible) or have had a similar experience?
Depending on the level at which I was teaching this text, I think I would like to move in that direction… to discuss magic realism and whether the text could be considered within that genre or framework and also to argue why it is not. Martel does manage to shake some of the magic realism label during the novel’s conclusion (I won’t give it away for those who haven’t finished the text yet!) so it could be an interesting argument to get the class involved in. Some techniques might be to split the room in two and have each side argue one or the other point. This would manage to expose the students to the text, teach them about the genre of magic realism (hopefully spurning them on to pick up more texts like that for their own pleasure reading by simply learning that more like those exist, if they enjoyed it), as well as formulate their understanding of presenting a thesis or argument and being able to support it, or see the flip side and argue for that as well.
I agree with Chantal: the idea of draw your interpretation is an interesting exercise in a classroom as a way to foster creativity, and allow our imaginations to become real on the page in front of us. The idea of what is possible and what is not, like the tree with teeth or the poisonous island, wasn’t at the forefront of my mind at all during the story, due to the fact of the absurd nature of Pi’s journey. His journey is so absurd that Martel, in the end of the book, offers the ‘alternate story’. So the idea of magical realism could be taken into consideration for the whole book, from the ocean journey onwards to the end. Like the Harry Potter series, is this a factor for potential resistance against Life of Pi in classrooms?
Also, I was struck at the comment that some readers didn’t like Life of Pi due to the ‘cop out’ ending. I read Pi in high school and can honestly say that it has not once crossed my mind that the end was a cop out! As soon as it was mentioned, I couldn’t believe that I had never once considered the thought of the ending as a cop-out as a possibility. To me, the ending was the big twist-the best part of the story. It catches the reader off-guard, and creates a sense of inquiry and state of reflection for the reader. How, in a classroom, do we foster both interpretations-the end is the best, and the end is a failure-to create an enjoyable Pi experience for everyone? I would love to teach Pi in my classrooms and have students discuss their interpretations and ideas of the ending in an essay. Why would Martel do this? What are the strengths? Weaknesses? And how does it engage, or disengage the reader? What sense does it leave you with? How many books do you know that end by creating literally two stories in one?
Something I found extremely interesting throughout Life of Pie was the perspective of the author. Especially in the first and third sections of the novel where the reader is made aware that someone is researching Pie’s story and investigating the events on the boat. The author seems to retell Pie’s story while remaining impartial and never giving his opinion as to what actually happened on the boat. Martel almost uses literary non-fiction techniques to tell the story witch can tie in with the mountain literature we studied previously. I think this would be the perfect novel to pair with a non-fiction piece and compare the similarities between both genres. Also one can pose the question why does Martel use this technique in Life of Pie.
As an assignment you could get students to look at Life of Pie as journalist and right their own articles on Pie’s life story. All the research has been done for them now all they have to do is come up with an argument and defend it like a journalist might in an editorial piece. The students could decide if they want to defend the story of Pie on the boat with the animals or the more realistic tale told to us at the end of the novel. This could also be an interesting way to break students out of the 3-paragraph essay structure and write a more creative piece.
I want to respond to Chantal’s comments about magic realism and Steph’s post about the “cop out” ending. First of all, I definitely suspended my disbelief throughout the book about the magical or unrealistic elements of the story. I think that this is where the first part of the book comes in as well in making us believe that a boy and a tiger could live on a lifeboat together for 227 days. In the first part of the novel, Martel plays with the line between fiction and non-fiction as he provides explanations of animal behaviour and facts about zoology. He builds the reader’s confidence about Pi’s knowledge of animals, and leads us to accept that since he has always lived around animals, he could, if anyone, co-exist with one in the middle of the Pacific. I did not doubt for a moment that Richard Parker was a real and tangible tiger that had successfully been trained by Pi. In Chapter 71, Pi describes the program he followed in training Richard Parker – a scientific procedure-like account that makes his narrative more believable. In fact, when I read the end of the novel and made the connection between Richard Parker and Pi’s subconscious, the thought struck me that it must be harder to train your primal subconscious than a tiger. I was also initially frustrated with the two Japanese men who wouldn’t believe Pi’s animal version of his journey. I was convinced that it was true, and thought that he was offering the alternate ending to simply appease them.
I definitely did not see the ending as a “cop out” either. In fact, I thought that it added a layer of depth and complexity to the text that it otherwise would not have had. Without the twist at the end, the novel would have still been a remarkable and enjoyable read; however, the alternate ending made me want to re-read the book with it in mind to see how Martel crafted a story capable of two meanings. It reminded me of the movie The Sixth Sense in that way. I don’t think that Martel would have been able to inspire the same “re-reading” without having offered the alternate ending.
We have also been talking a lot about theory that we could study in connection to The Life of Pi. I think that one of the most basic theories – and one which high school students could definitely understand – is Freud’s concepts of the id, the ego, and the superego. After having read the alternate ending, you could have them try to identify who the id, the ego, and the superego were in the story and to defend their selections. It would be a really interesting way to involve the discipline of psychology and to expose them to a famous theory that they will undoubtedly hear of again.