SEARCHING CULTURAL IDENTITY IN YANN MARTEL'S LIFE OF PI

Abstract

Life of Pi is a novel written by Yann Martel. It narrates the story of Pi, a young Indian boy who lives to tell about his dramatic escape after a shipwreck headed to Canada. He lives 227-days on a lifeboat with a tiger that finally changes his understanding about his identity. Pi lives in the condition of “in-between”, for India and Canada. He does not have a distinctive identity. The novel shows how cultural identity is determined, even metaphorically questions about fixed cultural identity, and how Canada is questioned as the promising land. These questions will be followed on the conclusion for the looseness of nation state. This research uses qualitative method to find out cultural identity and nationality between Canada and India. Thus, Bhabha’s theory is applied to determine how Pi’s cultural identity develops in the space of in-betweeness. However, as the part of diasporic literature, Life of Pi is observed by entering into a system of power between Canada as the representation of West and India as East, where the narrative is placed as “the Other” that must be conquered, mapped and understood. Finally, this research finds that Pi’s rejection toward all categorization addressed to his identity will allude his cultural identity or nationality.