Alternative Endings- Humans Or Animals?

 

 

The last few moments in Yan Martel’s tale, Life of Pi, are the most shocking because you are presented with a choice between two alternative endings- were there actually animals on the lifeboat with Pi, or were they people? Yann Martell wants you to decide which story you believe in as the truth. This choice occurs when Pi is in the hospital and sharing his experience with two agents from the Japanese cargo ship company. Pi procedes to share with him two very different survial stories. He starts with his animals story.

 

The Animal Story 

 

In this version of Pi’s story, the cargo ship sinks and during the chaos begins as he is joined on the lifeboat by a group of zoo animals- an orangutan, a spotted hyena, a zebra with a broken leg, and a 250 pound Bengal Tiger (named Richard Parker). After some time, Pi watches helplessly as the hyena kills the zebra and then the orangutan before it is quickly eaten by Richard Parker. Pi then sets about conditioning the tiger through various behavior rewarding systems (through food and fresh water), so that the two can co-exist in the boat. Though Pi succeeds, the pair remain on the brink of starvation. It is only after several months at sea that the two wash ashore an uncharted island packed with fresh vegetation and a bountiful meerkat population. Pi and Richard Parker stuff themselves, but soon discover that the island is home to a carnivorous algae that, when the tide arrives during the night, turns the ground to an acidic trap. Pi realizes that eventually the island will consume them, so he decides to stock up the lifeboat with greens and meerkats and set sail again. When the lifeboat makes landfall along the Mexican coast, Pi and Richard Parker are once again malnourished, and Pi collapses on the beach as he watches the Richard Parker disappear into the jungle without even so much as a glance backward to adknowledge the experience the two had. Pi is then found and brought to a hospital. However, the agents do not believe this tale he told them. They begin to challenge Pi’s story until he finally blurts out an alternative story. The alternative story is far more horrific. (3)

 

The Human Story

 

Instead of the hyena, orangutan, zebra, and tiger on board the lifeboat with Pi, each animal repersented a human! The Cook of the sunk ship (the hyena), Pi’s mother (the orangutan), a French sailor (the zebra) and Pi (the tiger!). Pi then proceeds to tell this dark and grosestic version of the "truth" to the agents. Pi shares how the cook needlessly amutates (rather hacks off) the leg of the wounded Sailor because it was badly damaged from the fall into the lifeboat. Pi shares how the real reason he did this was that he wanted bait for the fish. The now even worse off wounded Sailor (the wounded zebra) is eventually kiled by a vicious attack from the The cook (the hyena). In an outcry of such savageness Pi’s mom hits the cook over the head. However she is outmatched for the cook's strength, and ends up getting knockedout and eventually decapited. Pi in shock and disbelief jumps overboard, but stays close to the lifeboat for sometime. Pi eventually comes back aboard, and kills the cook when he has he back turned. The agents are shocked at the events in the version of his story, and the following conversation that poses the choice arises. Source (3) & (4).

 

The Conversation between Pi and Japanese officials - Chapter 99, Pg. 398-399, ‘Life of Pi’ 

 

Pi: “I told you two stories that account for the 227 days in between.”
Mr. Okamoto: “Yes, you did.”
Pi: “Neither explains the sinking of the Tsimtsum.”
Mr. Okamoto: “That’s right.”
Pi: “Neither makes a factual difference to you.”
Mr. Okamoto: “That’s true.”
Pi: “You can’t prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it.”
Mr. Okamoto: “I guess so.”
Pi: “In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer.”
Mr. Okamoto: “Yes, that’s true.”
Pi: “So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can’t prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?”
Mr. Okamoto: “That’s an interesting question …”
Mr. Chiba: “The story with animals.”
Mr. Okamoto: “Yes. The story with animals is the better story.”
Pi: “Thank you. And so it goes with God.”

 

Source (5)