Life of Pi: Final Essay

Morally ambiguous characters—characters whose behavior discourages readers from seeing them as purely good or purely evil—are the heart of many works of literature. Choose a character from Life of Pi to identify as morally ambiguous, and write an essay in which you explain how the character can be viewed as such and why his moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.

                Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi is steeped in spirituality and symbolism. With expertly researched detail and smooth transitions, the author crafts characters whose beliefs and actions can easily be categorized as either moral or immoral. The stark contrast between good and evil displayed by characters like Pi Patel, the hyena, the orangutan, and the zebra is juxtaposed with a less noticeable, but equally effective, theme: moral ambiguity. The author who records the menagerie of events that comprise Pi Patel’s life can be identified as a character uncategorized by standards of both virtue and vice. The evident spiritual yearning and unknown identity of the author contribute to his moral ambiguity and, on a larger scale, the spiritual significance of Life of Pi.

                Before Pi recounts his tale of both mental and physical survival, the unnamed narrator introduces himself with a few obscure facts. The reader soon finds that the author has achieved only paltry acclaim for his previous works and that he travels to India in search of inspiration. His (or her, for that matter) acknowledgement of members of the Japanese Embassy in Ottawa and the Canadian Council for the Arts could possibly suggest that he is Japanese-Canadian. Additionally, the fictional author notes that he can translate Japanese. The unknown nationality, family background, and religious beliefs of the author contribute to his moral ambiguity. The reader does not know how to idealize the figure responsible for telling Pi’s story because he exposes his own life in dim light. As a result of his murky self-characterization, the author’s morality is not easily determined. The spiritual impact of his piecemeal personal description lies in the unknown, which not only appears in the “Author’s Note” but throughout the novel as a prevalent reminder of all that has not and may not ever be discovered.

                Not only does the narrator minimalize concrete facts about himself, he also makes evident his lack of self-identity and purpose. The first sentence in Life of Pi is “This book was born as I was hungry.” The author’s lackluster literary success and his journey to India further depict the confusion he experiences as he yearns for a good story. He explains that when he introduced himself as a writer, people would tell him unsatisfactory stories in hopes of lending inspiration and perhaps gaining publicity. The author’s world is devoid of inspiration until Pi and his tale that promises to restore faith in God enters it. Since the author often seems to be chasing inspiration and living without amazement, his positive and negative qualities cannot be fully deciphered. His moral ambiguity and spiritual search contribute to the significance of Life of Pi by letting the reader know that human character is often blurred when it is not defined by some type of spirituality.

                The gray area between good and evil leaves ample room for interpretation, and interpretation is a major component of all literature. The morally ambiguous qualities of the author in Life of Pi, which are expressed in both his lack of background information and his looming skepticism towards spirituality, allow the reader to examine the role of uncertainty. The two main appearances of the author at the beginning and end of Life of Pi are thought-provoking expositions of a character that embodies the moral middle ground that all humans encounter as they strive to find purpose.