Does Pi (in the story, not the Tiger-Pi) symbolize God?

[Reid]

I was thinking about this story the other day and I was wondering on everyone's opinion of something. We know that the Tiger was Pi (or that's what the writer said symbolized him). However, does anyone else think that Pi (the Pi in the story NOT the tiger) could symbolize God? Like God was helping him all along the way (like how Pi providing fish and food for the Tiger was God providing food for the real Pi)? Like how the Tiger was actually quite helpless without Pi at the same time after he ate the bodies because there wasn't much to eat unless Pi had helped him and provided food (like the fish) for him. Sorry if that is really confusing but it goes along with that whole "God will provide" saying in this story. Any thoughts?

[Ellen]

That is a very good point. I think that the Tiger could symbolize God in the way that he can help you cope and is peaceful when you treat him well, but with the great potential to be deadly and destructive.

If the Tiger symbolizes God, what do you think the other animals or objects symbolize?

[Emily]

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the above. I think that at the end of the novel, it feels as though the reader is left to decide whether the animals were real or imagined. Quite frankly, I think the point in leaving it "up in the air" so to speak, is to tell tell the reader that you need to believe in SOMETHING. Whether it be God, Buddha, kindness, yourself. But you have to believe to get you through the difficult times.

[Lee]

I don't see it. Pi is simply a person who slipped out of reality in order to survive. Pi is, of course, an irrational number.

Compare him to the investigators, whom he meets when he is forced back to reality. The investigators WANT to believe, but their jobs require rationality and they are not allowed. They recognize the first story as the better story but must reject it. You are supposed to feel sorry for them, they can't simply "choose" like Pi to be irrational (Pi chose his name of his own accord). Don't you feel just a little sorry for evolutionary biologists who, because of their rational education and experience, cannot believe the story of Adam and Eve and the tree of life? These investigators probably don't even believe in Pi's magical tree in his Eden, either. Poor fellas, stuck in reality. They'll never survive if anything like Pi's experience happens to them.

[Al]

I thought the story was an argument for the attractiveness of fantasies - that people create "God" when they can't bear to face actual existence. So from my point of view, nothing in the framework of the book can symbolize "God" since "God" is a fiction.

[B]

God is a metaphor for Good. And being good can't curb the instinct to survive. Survival trumps "Dieties." As a rule, Dieties watch, they do not provide. Earth provides. Earth is the "Paradise" yet we're too ignorant to see "the forest for the trees." Circumstances and intelligence geared entirely to survival provides. Man is an animal whose has certain intelligences that have selectively evolved beyond the Tiger's. And yet, the tiger has many intelligences man will never have. Both have complementing and competing intelligences. They both survived, symbiotically. Some species do make moral choices but man created morals for his own species to answer man's ever pressing question. Maybe the answer is... "we are to enjoy and appreciate this gift we find our species has evolved from, our home the Earth." The immorality we are practicing is we knowingly continue to take for granted our Home, to our own peril and theirs. The tiger represents purity in the way he lives, only taking what he needs. Man chooses how he lives. Because how we/Man live impacts many living things and their resources needed to survive, morally, we have to choose life for all of us Earthlings, not just man, just like the movie. All living Earthlings have the right to survive. Not just man, alone.

[B]

It seems you're confused or didn't read my entire neutral statement. In my statement, there was no defaulting to a Christian view of god as you have assumed. I kept it god neutral.

Everything is subjective except natural law. In my opinion, Pi is an example of the selective nature of Natural Law. Pi is a bit more evolved cognitively, so he can better assess a situation to survive. A human's biological need for companionship could have/should have prompted him to feed Mr. Parker too. Therefore the bond. Natural Law.

Yes. This is a survival story.

No. I didn't ascribe supernatural attributes, you did and no I don't want and would never.

No I did not say Pi is enduring these trials in a Jesus sense. You are. Your defaulting to the Christian world view again for the second time.

If Jesus was in a survival mode, he'd have run away and lived. He was purposefully choosing the path of martyrdom, hence we now have an "exclusive and singular" world view interpreted by his disciples and all the Christian men who came after in most cases subverted from the message of kindness and acceptance to, deciding how people should live according to doctrine and further, what other world views are not acceptable as the "true path."

There's nothing Christian about survival. You naturally default to Christian interpretations of the book events. I have not purposefully.

For discussion sake of which this may be at an end, keep your comment on topic and not personal.

I responded to a topic not a person/you if that is your interpretation and personal response to my topic statement.

[Jeff]

The animal story had 5 characters on the boat and the human story had 4. Both stories are identical except in the animal story, God was on the boat. The man Pi took on the role of God, as the tiger Richard Parker took on the role of Pi. If you believe the animal story is true, you believe the story where God was the main character is true. Pi was a polytheist so there were no doubt subtleties from several religions in his persona as God. The two stories remind me of the Buddhist parable about heaven and hell, where the damned and saved are both in a room with a sumptuous banquet and access to the food only through 10 foot long chopsticks. The saved, of course, can eat because they feed each other.