Abstract
SummaryAlthough scholarship has reflected on aspects of spirituality and postmodernism in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the curious and colourful names of the characters have not yet been investigated in any depth. This study links the names and (re)namings to the novel’s thematic concern with storytelling and truth, arguing that names go to the heart of one of the novel’s main thematic concerns, namely the dichotomy between what things are and what they are called. Truth and lies become just different ways to describe phenomena whose deepest reality exists beyond language. The novel casts doubt on the ability of words and stories to capture truth, actual events and actions. I examine ways in which names and the characters they denote are emblematic of stories and the events they denote. But Life of Pi is not merely a book about truth, it is also about spirituality, which, like truth and lies, is premised on the existence of something beyond language. The protagonist, Pi, experiences his world and God through opposites that make up a whole. The analysis of names in this novel illuminates the intersection between, stories, truth and spirituality.
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