Unsettling Identity In Travel Literature With Special Reference To Life Of Pi

Despite its long history, travel literature has not been paid due attention to by literary critics until1990s. Post-modern theories such as post-colonialism and post-structuralism are habitually adopted as analytic instruments in the process of critical reading on travel texts. By leaving one’s country or residence, a traveler takes up an "in-between" space, which remodels individual identity from a natural person to an alien and forces the alien agent to question one’s own identity and previously defined positions by profession, class, gender and religion, etc. The self-searching travel is not only a way of mapping out one’s niche in the world, but also an unsettling activity in that the experiences of wandering across various designated borderlines lead to the sense of displacement.Life of Pi (2001), by Canadian author Yann Martel, can be said to be an excellent work of this century depicting the adventurous story of Patel, an Indian boy, who is stranded somewhere on the Pacific Ocean in a small lifeboat with a menacing tiger aboard. It was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in2002. The novel’s narrative deals predominantly with the theme of travel, and it seems that the thematic aspects may well serve to outline what one might understand by the term of travel literature. Therefore, this thesis undertakes a study of the issues of identity in travel literature with special reference to this book. By paying special attention to the literary characteristics of travel literature and making a specific analysis of Life of Pi, the thesis aims to reveal the everlasting charm and importance of this special literary genre, as well as the literary value of the novel under study. In addition, the thesis also intends to explore the construction of the main character’s self-identity, and its deconstruction and reconstruction in the process of his travel, unveiling the relationship between travel and identity. In so doing, the author wishes to present the latest development of travel literature.