Religion is a topic that has always been prevalent in literature. The most popular book of all time and the first ever printed is the Bible, which includes many stories of faith. In Life of Pi, Pi is an Indian boy whose faith is his life. He was lost at sea after his family's ship to Canada sank. He is alone on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean, except for a Bengal tiger. His story of survival is one of perseverance by faith in the face of overwhelming adversity. Authors have always used religious allusions and metaphors to hint at the overall allegorical meaning of their story, and that is exactly what Yann Martel does in The Life of Pi. Martel symbolizes the ocean and the island to represent the life with and without religion, and he uses Pi's experiences to draw contrasts between them. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayYann Martel uses Pi's journey as an allegory for the spiritual journey to find faith, and his encounter with the island represents the doubt that must be overcome. Before Pi arrives on the island, he finds himself alone with Richard Parker on the Pacific Ocean, and he only has his faith to motivate him. Once he has been on the island for a while, he believes he has all the essentials for a happy life. “For what reason could I have left the island? Were my physical needs not being met here? Wasn't there more fresh water than I could drink in my entire life? More seaweed than I could eat? And when I longed for variety, for more meerkats and fish than I could ever want? If the island floated and moved, couldn't it move in the right direction? Wouldn't it have been a vegetable boat that would have brought me ashore? In the meantime, didn't I have these charming meerkats to keep me company? (Martel 279). This quote serves to illustrate how the island exceptionally meets all the requirements of healthy living. While Pi is on the island, he makes no mention of God, but once he decides to leave the island in search of humanity, he returns to his faith. Earlier in the book, Pi says that doubt is necessary for everyone and that for your faith to be strong, you must at some point question it. Pi turns to the meerkats to keep him company when he's on the island, instead of the humans he dreams of. Later, Pi decides to leave the island again in search of humanity. “When morning came, my dark decision was made. I preferred to leave and perish in search of my loved ones rather than live a solitary half-life of physical comfort and spiritual death on this murderous island. (Martel 283). The quote embodies the thesis. Yann Martel uses it to demonstrate the atheist qualities of the island and to show that Pi realized that life on the island would not be worth living. Although he has everything necessary on the island to live (physical comfort), is it worth living without any human interaction (spiritual death)? Is it worth living a life without any higher purpose except survival? Yann Martel uses this doubt to compare Pi's solitary life on the island to atheism and life without religion. Yann Martel uses Pi's descent from human to animal on the island to prove that the only real difference between humans and animals is religion. When Pi first encounters the meerkats on the island, he sees Richard Parker running through the crowd of meerkats and killing as many as he can. Pi notes that this is the very definition of animals, killing without necessity. “He killed without need. He killed.