Analysis

That Pi survived, possibly with Richard Parker rather than alone with only horrible memories of his mother’s death and his taking the life of another person, brings the novel to a conclusion that is, although still unreliable, as close to truth as one can get. Although so much of the novel—with its series of unreliable narrators and its closing affirmation that Pi and Richard Parker were shipmates and survived together—depends on a deep suspension of disbelief, it fulfills the ultimate promise made by Mr. Adirubasamy at the very beginning of the novel: that it is a story that can make one believe in God. Whether it is in Pi’s story or God, belief can come only through faith.