Life of Piby Yann Martel: Parody in Art of Telling
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Department of English
Abstract
Yann Martel’s Life of Piistypically a postmodern-parodic fiction, which not only aims
to resist the singularity of the grand narratives, but also parodies all the existing tales and
narratives. By offering to ‘believe in God’ through his fiction, Martel baits his readers
with serious themes and trawls them into a sea of questions and confusion.Martel
introduces an uncertainty principle throughout his plot of the story to promote the
postmodern general concept like uncertainty and fluidity of meanings and truth. This
fiction coincides with Lyotard’s concept of ‘meta-narrative’ and ‘little-narrative’, and
Derrida’s concept of ‘play’, ‘differance’ and ‘deconstruction’.Pi Patel, the main
character and narrator, proves him to be a liar and tells two different versions of the same
story. Martel offers his readers to choose any of the versions, they think to be the better
story, and readers are left confused and forced to question, what actually happened as
well as to ponder different levels of interpretations and the meanings. So,Life of Piis a
postmodern (parodic)‘mini-narrative’ because postmodern narratives are not evaluated in
terms of their truth value.