Storytelling by Tyra

Storytelling by Tyra - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

A book that has greatly influenced me is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This novel oversees the life of Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, a young boy from India, who must learn to survive at sea with a Bengal tiger after being shipwrecked. At first, it was simply the plotline that intrigued me. It did not seem like a storyline that I had ever read before, so I was very interested in reading it. However, what hooked me was Martel’s writing style and the message he was trying to convey—specifically, the message on storytelling.
Through this novel, Martel is expressing the importance of storytelling and how people like to accept their own realities, whether it is true or not. At the end of the novel, Pi divulges to two men the circumstances of how he survived at sea: he says that he had the company of various animals and a tiger which kept his will to survive going strong even after all hope of rescue was lost. However, Pi also confesses that this story he has told may or may not be fact. He then proceeds to tell a story no longer featuring animals, but instead featuring a human counterpart. The significance of this is that all of the animalistic and gruesome actions that seem reasonable in the story involving animals become unbelievable and horrid with people involved. The two men that Pi tells the story to are then faced with the difficult decision of which story to publish, since one is unbelievable, and the other is violent and gruesome. The men are able to choose which reality they want to believe in, whether or not it is the actual reality.
The reason why this novel has been so influential in my life is that it has made me not only appreciate the importance of storytelling, but also ponder what reality I believe in as a result of stories. I genuinely believe that storytelling is one of, if not the, most important form of communication. It is certainly the oldest form of communication, as seen by the art found on cave walls from early man. They were stories left that described experiences and were used to communicate to others. Storytelling is a method to leave behind a legacy and express ideas to others. This novel has influenced me to believe that people should strive to leave behind a great story of their own to show how they are able to leave a mark on the world. This story may be in the form of photographs, especially thanks to social media, or art, writing, actions and good deeds. Our stories should show how we have overcome our own struggles, just as Pi does, and that we are capable of helping others overcome theirs.