The Topic of Faith in A Prayer for Owen Meany and Life of Pi

There are many controversial topics in society today, and religion is one of the few; religion is the dogma and reverence of an individual(s) of a higher controlling power whether that means it is one God or multiple gods/goddesses. Although it may be controversial, there are a vast amount of novels that have tried to have the underlying message of how situations within the world have an effect on individuals in many manners, but more specifically how these situations mould, embrace and develop our building of faith. Faith is something that is constantly hovering our world. Even then, each and every existing soul differs from one to another and whether or not people believe it at the time; they may find themselves leaning towards it during a time of need, and that is completely acceptable. This topic of faith plays a significant portion within the novels ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’ by John Irving and ‘Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel.

To some individuals and even families society has influenced and shaped us to believe that religion/faith is not necessary to be taught to children, vastly because basing morality on the declared command of the alleged deity seems absurd to some. While that is one of the reasons, the other one is that faith is too much for a child to worry about at such a young age and should not have to face that; “Innocent children are being saddled with demonstrable falsehoods. It's time to question the abuse of childhood innocence with superstitious ideas of hellfire and damnation.” With that being said, the two novels that will be mentioned in this essay will show how the characters, both as children have a positive connection with their faiths and how it isn’t as negative as society deems upon us; despite the fact that both these books are fiction, they can still be applied to our modern day society in certain circumstances. It is witnessed that within both novels, the two characters that have a big impact; Pi and Owen are not afraid to act a little older than their age, are both knowledgeable beyond their years and are not hesitant to tell other people about their beliefs and principles, which should be the mere reality of it. “I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem.

Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.” (Martel, 2001) These words are spoken by Pi in the first part of the novel, this shows that he completely recognizes the perspectives that others may have upon the zoo, just like religion; just as individuals misunderstand the nature of animals in the wild, they also misunderstand the concept of religion. Some people look at religion through a lens where they do not want to take an imaginative leap, and some look at it as their set of rules are the only ones that could potentially be right and there is no other way around it, that is what is having a negative impact on society.