Ramos-Muñoz, Elvin

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Life of Pi and the oceanic sublime
(2020-05-26) Ramos-Muñoz, Elvin; Batra, Nandita; College of Arts and Sciences - Art; Quintero, María; Rivera, Rosita L.; Department of English; Cruzado-Vélez, Ivette
This thesis situates Yann Martel’s Life of Pi within the area of sea studies, analyzing the novel at the intersection of ecocritical ethics, social histories at sea, shipwreck allusions in literary texts, and the burgeoning field of blue cultural studies. My thesis also features a historical survey of representative Life of Pi criticism, ranging from conceptual frameworks as varied as Orientalism, psychoanalysis, simulacra, and ecocriticism. My own work treats Life of Pi as a sea text, advocating for “the better story” as a means of overcoming hardships at sea and establishing viable belief in the Divine. The process of identifying religion as discourse, as choice, is equated with growth and development. The study outlines Pi’s journey from land religions to sea faith and back to land religions, documenting how Pi’s adolescent spirituality transformed amidst an oceanic sublime with life-long implications for the Indian émigré. This is illustrated best in the middle-class, metropolitan life the adult Pi enjoys in Canada.