The first turning point on the raft is much like Pi’s turning point in the first part of the novel. Just as he goes from a passive observer in the classrooms that bastardized his name to an active participant who demands a rebaptism, so does he move from a silent occupant of the raft to the hero of it. When the hyena kills the orangutan, Pi decides it is time to kill the hyena. This decision is notable for the confidence with which Pi executes it. There is no inner dialogue about the merits or possible outcomes of such a decision. It is treated as a fact of nature. Pi’s attack of the hyena is inextricably linked to the hyena’s attack of the orangutan: “It [the fatally wounded orangutan] was a sight horrible to the eyes and killing to the spirit. Just before throwing myself upon the hyena…” (132). This is the only discussion of the attack we get because it never actually happens. Instead, Pi is stopped by the realization that Richard Parker is still on the boat. Richard Parker, then, becomes tied to Pi’s agency. Pi’s first real act of survival on the lifeboat is halted by Richard Parker.

This pattern is repeated throughout the second part of the novel. When Pi realizes that he has a powerful will to leave, for instance, Richard Parker is there: “Richard Parker started growling that very instant, as if he had been waiting for me to become a worthy opponent” (148).  As Richard Parker prepares to kill the hyena, Pi prepares a mini-raft so that he can get off the lifeboat and presumably to safety. These two actions are linked together. The narration switches back and forth from Pi’s tasks to Richard Parker’s posturing. Just as Pi is about to finish the raft (he “only had to hitch the other end of the rope to the raft”), Richard Parker attacks the hyena (150). Thus, Pi and Richard Parker work at parallel tasks that ultimately ensure Pi’s survival.

Agency is central to Life of Pi, and Pi begins using strong forms of agency early in the novel. In Chapter 5, Pi goes into a lengthy discussion of his full name (Piscine) and how it was often mispronounced. Out of shame and a fear of ridicule, Pi comes up with an ingenious solution: he will control the destiny of his name. Instead of waiting for his name to be mispronounced, Pi takes a more proactive approach. The process he goes through to rename himself is illuminating as a study of Pi’s agency.

The first solution Pi mentions is to simply be known as “Ravi’s brother.” This solution is ultimately thrown out because “following in someone’s shadow wasn’t my escape” (22). By naming himself in relation to someone else, Pi recognizes that he loses part of what it means to be an individual.

The plan he comes up with–to creatively show teachers he wants to be called Pi–requires a lot of action. His fear of humiliation drives him, on the first day of class, to go to the board and write on it without being told to. This event, however, does not only represent an extremely agentic first day of school. It also represents the beginning of Pi taking control of his story. With the success of his plan, Pi has successfully renamed the main character of his story.

Life of Pi is not a generic story, and Pi is not a generic individual. Pi goes above and beyond what McAdams would deem “taking control of one’s narrative identity.” He imbues his story not only with characters, plot, and setting but also with archetypes, myth, allegory, and symbolism. Pi is definitely the author of his story, but he is also something more–he is, in some cases, quite literally creating his own reality.

Several times throughout the first section, Pi hints at his more fluid type of storytelling. Myth and reality are going to be blurred, Pi warns his readers. For instance, at the end of Chapter 20, Pi describes an experience he had where he saw the Virgin Mary. He situates the experience long-after the main plot of his story, distancing it from the main story’s mythical qualities and implying that reality-making is something that the adult Pi continues to do. What is unique about Pi’s account of this religious moment is not that it is unrealistic. This moment is unique because Pi recognizes it’s unrealistic nature without weakening his belief in it. He says, “When I say I saw her, I don’t quite mean it literally, though she did have body and colour. I felt I saw her, a vision beyond a vision” (63). By saying this, Pi makes the occurrence less concrete (he didn’t actually see her) while attaching to it a heavier kind of reality (it was “a vision beyond a vision”).

This play between the duality of reality and myth occurs again only a page later. Pi spends a short chapter explaining a difference between atheists and agnostics. For Pi, the atheist still has a chance at religious salvation. When presented with God at death, the atheist believes because s/he has not been so much skeptical as s/he has been committed. The agnostic, by contrast, remains skeptical till the very end and is thereby unable to ever have faith. Pi articulates this problem by saying that agnostics “lack imagination and miss the better story” (64). The “better story” for Pi can only be achieved through imagination, a function not normally associated with reality and science. It is almost as if Pi recalibrates meaning-making around myth and imagination rather than truth and reality. The result is striking.