Life of Pi Symbolism, Imagery, & Allegory

The greatest temptation in the history of mankind is to read Life of Pi as an allegory. It's so easy, right? Each surviving animal matches up with a human survivor. (Martel offers us the blueprint...

Pi tells the Japanese investigators a horrific, factual version of his ordeal in Chapter 99. It takes about seven pages. As Martel has stated in one interview, he pushes his readers to make a leap...

OK. The algae island might be the second weirdest part of the book. (Second only to Pi's conversation with the blind Frenchman.) It's an island made entirely of seaweed, full of meerkats and freshw...

We've already bombarded you with the idea that nothing in Life of Pi is straightforward allegory. Same goes for Pi's ordeal on the Pacific. There's a lot of religious symbolism, and the whole deal...