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Why wouldn't Pi's story have a happy ending? What would make it unhappy?
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Life of Pi: Chapter 36
Why wouldn't Pi's story have a happy ending? What would make it unhappy?
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12 comments:
The fact that the writer doesn't know about Pi's family and animals could be because Pi fails to inform the writer about them or more likely that the "reporter" didn't do a very great job at investigating his source before the interview. Since the reporter obviously didn't do a very good job at paying attention to detail or first hand investigation this makes him less reliable because he might not catch some of the smaller details that will build up the rest of the story told by Pi.
Pi's story might not have a happy ending because it might lead to some kind of horrible suffering, or misfortune that runs the rest of Pi's life.
If Pi intentionally left out his family it could be because he doesn't fully trust the reporter. Trust could end up being a problem later in his story which might lead to why he doesn't trust the reporter.
The reporter may not have known about Pi's family, dog, and cat because we find out earlier in the novel that Pi is a rather shy person. From that, I take that Pi is not the type of person that would just tell people everything. This speaks to Pi's lack of forthrightness. I do not think it diminishes the reliability of the narrator because as a reader, I assume that the narrator is giving the reader all they have collected.
Pi's story may not have a happy ending because of the doubts subtly, or not so subtly put previously in the novel. The violent Bengal tiger scene could be foreshadowing a terrible mistake that Pi makes. It could also be unhappy in the way that something awful happens to Pi's family. I agree with Mariah in the idea that Pi may not trust the narrator fully.
The reporter may not know much about Pi, and his family, because Pi tends to keep to himself, or the reporter did a bad job of reviewing his source. Who knows? I'm still curious about the narrator, and I still find the narrator a reliable source of relaying information to us.
I've thought from the beginning of the outcome of Pi's story, and it's doubt concerns me. I feel that Pi is resisting this new life, and is unsure of his own future, which is foreshadowed in the book.
It appears that the reporter didn't do a very good job researching before starting the interview, but the lack of knowledge of Pi's family and pets could also be due to Pi's shyness. I still find the narrator reliable, but am curious to see what happens next.
There has been a lot of foreshadowing in the novel, leading to some doubt about Pi's outcome. The tiger scene earlier in the novel, where Pi's father shows him and Ravi what a tiger is capable of, concerns me.
The reporter may not know everything about Pi simply because Pi didn't tell him. Pi seems to be the type of person that doesn't want to share everything about himself. Or he may have thought those details weren't important enough to tell the reporter. Not knowing every little detail doesn't make the narrator any less reliable. It's not that he has said things that are untrue, he just doesn't know everything and therefore can't express what he doesn't know.
Pi's story, despite not having the best of endings, still seems to turn out ok. I mean he has a normal life, or at least as normal as he is able to manage. He is happy and still practices multiple religions. He also has a wife and a child. So his misfortune didn't completely ruin the rest of his life.
I think the writer was not aware of Pi's family and pets, not because of his lack of attention, but because Pi did not want the writer to know these things. Pi seems to be the quiet type that likes his privacy. He only tells people things about himself if he trusts this person and has made the decision to tell them with a lot of thought about it ahead of time. He has his secrets, which he demonstrated earlier in the novel when he was part of three religions without anyone really knowing it for a while. He never even told his parents he was interested in religion. It is the same with the reporter and Pi's family. He let the reporter in on this when he felt like it was time.
The reason the reporter doesn't know about Pi's family, dog, or cat seems to be because Pi doesn't inform him of it. Pi seems to keep to himself and his family rather than the public, which explains why the reporter does not know much about Pi's personal life. I think the fact that the reporter doesn't know about any of Pi's personal life speaks to Pi's lack of forthrightness rather than the reporters lack of detail. I don't believe this diminishes the narrator's reliability. I think that the narrator is letting the reader in on as much as he knows himself and is telling the reader as he finds out.
Most likely this is due to a lack of forthrightness on Pi's part. A writer, especially a distinguished one, is going to be thorough. Pi is supposedly a very shy person, and it may be that because he is about to tell the most traumatizing part of his life to a writer that he trys to keep his private life out of the picture if they are not revelant to the story.
Pi's story would not have a happy ending if he died, obviously, but then again, the story would not have been told if he died. It appears that he is not damaged from this; he still has his religion and he has a family and the family bond instead of going insane from the months of isolation.
I think the fact that the reporter did not realize parts of Pi's life shows his focus on Pi in a more philosophical sense. Pi is a man of strong belief and a very intelligent mind. It is almost hard to think of him as a regular father with a wife and kids. I think the reporter is so interested in his thoughts that simple details like that slipped his mind. I don't think this makes the narrator less reliable, I just think is shows Pi and his extensive life.
I'm not sure what the unhappy ending could be. Though Pi clearly suffers in the loss of his family and the will to survive, in the end he has been clearly rescued and seemed to move on with his life. This makes me question what else is to come throughout the book.
The narrator seems pretty reliable. He is observant, and I don't think the fact that he is surprised to learn about Pi's family, dog, or cat, has anything to do with a lack of reseach or carelessness on his part. At this point in the story, the reader knows that Pi is being interviewed. The question is, what he is being interviewed about? The narrator's shock of Pi's happy home life hints that he did not expect Pi to be so put together. This means that Pi's life must have been exceptionally painful, and that the writer genuinely expected Pi's attitude to be completely different.
I believe that the writer didn't have a complete lack of knowledge about Pi, otherwise why would the writer want to tell Pi's story. The primary reason I believe the writer didn't know Pi's personal details is because Pi isn't a forthright person. In previous chapters examples of Pi's lack of forthrightness is proven, like he didn't inform his parents of practicing three different religions. I don't believe this destroys the writers credibility at all.
The end.
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