Essay on Suffering

For the first time I noticed – as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next – that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. My suffering did not fit anywhere, I realized. And I could accept this. It was all right (Martel 177).
One of the themes shared by the play J.B by Archibald MacLeish, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel is keeping faith even through extreme suffering. Both Job and Pi are very faithful to God and both undergo extreme emotional and physical suffering and they are rewarded for that.
Pi is a God loving boy who practices Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity.
Life of Pi is a very unique story because as Pi suffers through many trials and is still faithful, the reader is also put through a sort of a test of faith.   As Yann Martel wrote this novel, he claimed he could make a reader believe in God.   Many of Pi’s trials are very bizarre and incredible.   As one reads the novel, it is a realistic story until the reader gets to the second part of the book – when Pi is stranded on a life boat with a zebra, a hyena, and Orangutan, and, most menacingly, a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.   Soon all of the animals kill each other off, and Pi is on the boat with the 450 pound animal.   But even with this situation the novel still has a very realistic feel, especially when described through the eyes of Pi.
It is towards the middle of the second part when the reader’s faith begins to falter.   Pi and Richard Parker both become blind through malnutrition and they encounter and other stranded castaway in the middle of the ocean.   After a delirious conversation with the man, the other castaway is eaten by Richard Parker.   Soon after, the pari encounters and island.   It soon becomes and Eden as it has plenty of food and mysterious fresh water ponds.   The island is a floating mass of algae with trees growing out of the plant.   Aquatic Meer...