A Reading of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi from the Perspective of Thomas Carlyle’s Hero as Divinity, Prophet and Poet

Abstract

Yann Martels Life of Pi is a 2002 winner of the Man Booker Prize. The protagonist of the novel is a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi. His life in Pondicherry and Canada and his struggle for existence following a shipwreck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean constitute the central theme of the novel. Thomas Carlyle has extensively given lectures on hero, heroism and hero worship. The lecture series was later published with the title On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History. Certain elements that Carlyle has made use of for his analysis of heroes are worth reviewing and are employed in this section. Carlyle gave six lectures on heroes. However, in this article, only three characteristics of heroes are employed to decipher the hero of Life of Pi.