The Same yet Different

An essay response to the novel The Power and the Glory by Grahm Greene

The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene, the use of the Passion--a religious story from the New Testament--as a main comparison, is displayed through the main characters; as Jesus, Judas, and the Pontius Pilate were main people involved in the well known event of the Passion, the whiskey priest, the Mestizo, and the lieutenant were characters that played the same role as the religious figures in the Passion, throughout the novel.

The complicated world, full of hate and disagreement, that is displayed in the novel, is controlled by non-Christians who believe that any Christian leader shall be terminated; the conviction to stay true to your faith has put the whiskey priest on the run as a fugitive. This on-the-run priest represents the Biblical being of Jesus--one who sacrificed his body for others and his beliefs. Throughout the story of the Passion, Jesus wasn't liked by the Jewish citizens because of his beliefs in Christianity. His difference in thoughts lead him to be pursued by the leader of the Jews, the Pontius Pilate, and eventually killed by them. Jesus followed his conviction and gave his life for all the humans who have sinned, gave his life to prove that he was a man of his thoughts, and to show the world how much every single person meant to him. As Jesus wasn't welcome in the Jewish area, the whiskey priest wasn't welcome in his town either--any open Christian priest or follower was a wanted human in their town. Just like Jesus, the priest was later killed because of his beliefs.

Although Jesus was open with his religion, the priest was more secretive and didn't want anyone to know; he hid in towns until he finally decided to let his thoughts and beliefs free. To be disliked, or even worse, hated by the population for your thoughts and religion is truly unheard of in our time today, and would confuse most individuals. We have grown up in a world where it is your right to believe, feel, and say what you want--a world much different than the one in the novel. Without our individual thoughts, the world would be simply boring. "The new children would have new memories: nothing would ever be as it was. There was something of a priest in his intent observant walk--a theologian going back over the errors of the past to destroy them again." (24) Times have changed, things are different, but yet the same. During the time of the Passion, the Jewish people--along with their leader, the Pontius Pilate--thought that after the death of Jesus, there would be an end to Christianity. Along with his faith, Jesus rose again and brought back Christianity. Like Jesus, the whiskey priest and his faith are unwanted in the local towns. Their belief in religions have cost them their lives.

As the whiskey priest represented Jesus because of their similarities, the men who pursued these religious people were also similar. Throughout the novel, the lieutenant--the man in charge of finding and killing the wanted people--contains qualities and times in his life that are similar to the Pontius Pilate--the head of the Jewish people, and the one in charge of Jesus' death. In both cases, the lieutenant and Pontius Pilate both were considered, by the citizen's nearby, as the 'higher power," and they were looked upon as the ones who decide what is okay to believe in. Along with making the rules, the two powerful men also had to take care of the ones who chose to go against the sacred rules, go against the higher power, and against the normal beliefs. "We have to die some time," the lieutenant said. "It doesn't seem to matter so much when." (206) At the end of both stories, Jesus and the whiskey priest died because of their rulers or the higher power. In the novel, the lieutenant foes after and kills the ones who are brave enough to be Christian, and those who believe in something; this action is unheard of in our community today. Jesus got crucified for our sins and because the Pontius Pilate didn’t believe in Christianity, while Jesus was a strong, Christian leader. The differences in beliefs got Jesus and the whiskey priest by the higher power men who seem not to care who died, when or why because it was a part of their jobs. They could have terminated an innocent person's life, just to follow their conviction--a job not many would be willing to take.

Just as Jesus and the whiskey priest had someone watching, criticizing, and following their every move, they also had followers who claimed to be loyal, but in the end, betrayed their religious leaders. Throughout both the novel, and Bible, the Mestizo and Judas portray the same characteristics, and the Mestizo ends up doing things parallel to Judas. In the Bible, Judas was in charge of a money box due to his honesty and other trustworthy qualities; temptation got the best of him, and Judas stole some of the money that the box contained. In the novel, the Mestizo had been trusted, but also did some bad things."I am a religious man myself. This is a religious place." (168) Both Judas and the Mestizo claimed to be religious, but eventually turned against their religious leaders. We all attempt to be truthful one hundred percent of the time, but it is human nature to have flaws, and these men's flaws were their commitment to religion.

Later, at the last super, Jesus told his disciples that he knew that one of his men would betray him, and let Judas know that it would be him. Parallel to Jesus telling Judas, the whiskey priest knew that someone would eventually turn him in and betray him. After Jesus' cue to Judas that he would soon betray his leader, Judas lead the soldiers to Jesus, where he turns him, leading Jesus to be arrested. Continually betraying their leaders, the men confess their wrong doings, trying to make it all better. As humans, we recognize our mistakes, and sometimes regret them, leading the majority of us to confess to someone, and try to reconcile. Both Judas and the Mestizo display the idea of betraying your leader, and then regretting your decisions--decisions that could alter your life.

As a Christian, our lives have been mapped out and decided by a crucial event in the New Testament: the Passion. The idea of making a religion illegal seems strange and incomprehensible to most people now, but was regular daily routine in the setting of this novel, by Graham Greene. In the novel, the idea of no religion has set some people off on their journey's to discover themselves as a Christian, or in some cases, a person without religious beliefs. As Jesus, Judas, and the Pontius Pilate were main characters in the well known event, the Passion, the whiskey priest, the Mestizo, and the lieutenant were characters that portrayed the same role as the religious figures in the Bible. The use of the Passion--a religious story from the New Testament--as a comparison, is displayed throughout the course of the novel, The Power and the Glory.

Covering Up Flaws

An essay response to the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Throughout the duration of the novel Life of Pi, Pi Patel--a young Indian boy who has a very strong faith--tells his life story through two different, yet parallel, stories due to the human nature of covering up his natural flaws. In the first story told through animals, Pi's character is portrayed through himself, and a beautiful Bengal tiger at the same time. While in contrast, in the second story displayed through humans, Pi is actually himself. Piscine made up these stories to make his life seem better than it actually is, to cover up his mistakes, and to make it seem like he is still the innocent, pure boy he said he was. This young Indian boy believes that it is okay to make up a story, describing his life's journey, to cover up his horrible time on the Pacific Ocean. Life is a story. In your head it's a fantasy, but in reality, it's much more complex and challenging; Pi first tells the story in his head.

While experiencing his adventurous life on the Pacific, Pi discusses with himself, because everyone else has left him one way or another, about everything that has happened on his journey. In one section during the first story, Richard Parker and Pi, in way both Pi just talking to himself(a little hard to understand, consider revision), talk about a terrible, sad thing: murder. Richard Parker, Pi's alter ego, admitted that in fact, he has killed two men in his life. If Richard Parker displays Pi's worse side, then Pi himself has killed two men--an act that obviously goes against his beliefs. "That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality." (p.VIII) Since he has gone so far in the opposite direction of religion and living by the 10 Commandments, Pi thinks that the only way to make it seem like he is still the innocent, religious boy he was, is to make up another story, covering his faults.

During the first story of Pi's life, there were animals, along with Pi, aboard the life boat; unfortunately, it soon became just Pi by himself. Right after the ship sank, Pi was thrown onto a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a raging hyena, and his alter ego, the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. Soon after the group had experienced the torture on the ocean, the zebra was nearly dead, so the hyena took it into his own hands to take the suffering animal out of its misery. In the wild, animals survive on their own kind; humans see killing other humans as revolting, but in an essence, this is what has just happened. After the death of the zebra, Richard Parker was hungry, so he decided to kill the hyena. Soon it became Pi along with his other half, Richard Parker. Throughout the second story, it was Pi, his mother, and the ship's cook who were put onto the life boat, fending for themselves. In this case, Pi's mother had the injured leg, and the cook took it into his hands to take her leg, when it really wasn't necessary for it to be amputated. Pi had just experienced part of his mother dying; he didn't know he'd soon see all of his mother die. After some long, grueling days, the cook killed his mother and used her flesh for bait. The young boy was so revolted at this terrible crime, that he ended up killing the cook, leaving himself to find food. "I will confess that I caught one of his arms with the gaff and used his flesh as bait. I will further confess that, driven by the extremity of my need and the madness to which it pushed me, I ate some of his flesh. I mean small pieces, little strips that I meant for the gaff's hook that, when dried by the sun, looked like ordinary animal flesh." (p.256) Pi used to be a pure vegetarian, but he has become another person, a cannibal. While becoming this horrible person, he made up his second story--this story has animals killing each other instead of humans because it seems less horrible to have animals committing such acts.

After seeing these terrible things, Pi has become aware of the sins he's committed, his ignorance toward them, and longs to hide what has been done. While living in India, in a modest family home, Pi was a strict vegetarian; living on the Pacific ocean has created something out of him of which he had never envisioned--a person who eats animal's and their meat. "Lord, to think that I'm a strict vegetarian. To think that when I was a child I always shuddered when I snapped open a banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of an animal's neck. I descended to a level of savagery I never imagined possible." (p.197) His unique journey has showed how much surviving without natural resources, that we take for granted, can impact our beliefs as well as our character. Throughout Pi's first story of life, he has killed animals left and right. He somehow crafts a completely different story to plaster over all that he is ashamed of; Pi's reputation is of great importance to him. To cover up his flaws, Pi displays the cook as a bad person and describes him killing Pi's poor mother. Although Pi is still eating animals, he feels as if it isn't as bad when someone else was pushed so far as to do the same. In our lives as humans, everyone makes mistakes, it's just natural. We sometimes even lie about what we did to protect ourselves from the consequences that may come along with our actions; Pi is doing the same, harmless thing. Pi still wants to be the good, perfect little boy, but he realizes that it is very hard to contain that image while living a life as a salvage; he finds no wrong in making a story to cover up his sins because it protects who he is and his reputation as a modest Indian boy.

While Pi is used to living a modest life, living on the ocean has taught him many important things, and has forced him to make difficult decisions that could affect who he is. Even though he's made these decisions, he continues to cover them up so no one will ever know what he did to stay alive, and to protect the reputation he has with his family. Pi's reputation and who he as a person is very important to him, and it's the only way he will be happy. Due to the human nature of covering up flaws, Pi Patel tells his life story through two different stories, to make his life seem like it isn't as horrible as his real life.