Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi

Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, the winner of numerous prestigious awards, was described as “very bold and extreme with a wonderful central idea” (Irish Examiner 2002). The “central idea” of the novel has been described differently by readers and literary critics around the world. For many, it is P...

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Autor principal:	Biljana Vlašković Ilić
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN FR SR
Publicado:	University of Belgrade 2017
Materias:	Yann Martel Life of Pi eco criticism anthropocentrism religion fiction Anthropology GN1-890
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/4963e8b3d2104107b4f75dbd7b8726a9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:4963e8b3d2104107b4f75dbd7b8726a92021-12-04T19:23:09ZEcocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi10.21301/EAP.V12I3.100353-15892334-8801https://doaj.org/article/4963e8b3d2104107b4f75dbd7b8726a92017-09-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.eap-iea.org/index.php/eap/article/view/290https://doaj.org/toc/0353-1589https://doaj.org/toc/2334-8801 Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, the winner of numerous prestigious awards, was described as “very bold and extreme with a wonderful central idea” (Irish Examiner 2002). The “central idea” of the novel has been described differently by readers and literary critics around the world. For many, it is Pi’s relationship with the tiger, Richard Parker; for some, it is the decentering of humans in favour of animals; and yet for others, the central idea of Life of Pi lies in Martel’s unusual treatment of religions and their role in human life. In this paper we argue that that the main idea of the novel is Martel’s ecocriticism of humanity in general, and especially the tendency of humans to put themselves at the center of any story, whether about animals or gods. Martel creates a tangled web of many different stories which define Pi’s life in order to prioritize the role of fiction in the development of human personality and dissect the relations between the human, the natural world, and the text. Although he favors the animal story, the final chapter reveals that the only story humans find “real” is the one in which animals are seen as anthropomorphic. Biljana Vlašković IlićUniversity of BelgradearticleYann MartelLife of Pieco criticismanthropocentrismreligionfictionAnthropologyGN1-890ENFRSREtnoantropološki Problemi, Vol 12, Iss 3 (2017)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN FR SR
topic	Yann Martel Life of Pi eco criticism anthropocentrism religion fiction Anthropology GN1-890
spellingShingle	Yann Martel Life of Pi eco criticism anthropocentrism religion fiction Anthropology GN1-890 Biljana Vlašković Ilić Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
description	Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi, the winner of numerous prestigious awards, was described as “very bold and extreme with a wonderful central idea” (Irish Examiner 2002). The “central idea” of the novel has been described differently by readers and literary critics around the world. For many, it is Pi’s relationship with the tiger, Richard Parker; for some, it is the decentering of humans in favour of animals; and yet for others, the central idea of Life of Pi lies in Martel’s unusual treatment of religions and their role in human life. In this paper we argue that that the main idea of the novel is Martel’s ecocriticism of humanity in general, and especially the tendency of humans to put themselves at the center of any story, whether about animals or gods. Martel creates a tangled web of many different stories which define Pi’s life in order to prioritize the role of fiction in the development of human personality and dissect the relations between the human, the natural world, and the text. Although he favors the animal story, the final chapter reveals that the only story humans find “real” is the one in which animals are seen as anthropomorphic.
format	article
author	Biljana Vlašković Ilić
author_facet	Biljana Vlašković Ilić
author_sort	Biljana Vlašković Ilić
title	Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
title_short	Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
title_full	Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
title_fullStr	Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
title_full_unstemmed	Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
title_sort	ecocriticism and anthropocentrism in yann martel’s life of pi
publisher	University of Belgrade
publishDate	2017
url	https://doaj.org/article/4963e8b3d2104107b4f75dbd7b8726a9
work_keys_str_mv	AT biljanavlaskovicilic ecocriticismandanthropocentrisminyannmartelslifeofpi
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Ecocriticism and Anthropocentrism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi

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