Summary and Analysis
Chapter 100: The Report
Summary
The final chapter is short, succinct, and gives an analysis of the available facts about the sinking of the Tsimtsum. It concludes that no bad weather was reported in the area in which the ship sunk, that the ship possibly hit an explosive, and that the lone survivor’s account is mostly unreliable. The report is completely inconclusive except to confirm and officially report that Pi survived his 227-day ordeal—possibly in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.
Analysis
That Pi survived, possibly with Richard Parker rather than
alone with only horrible memories of his mother’s death and his taking the life
of another person, brings the novel to a conclusion that is, although still
unreliable, as close to truth as one can get. Although so much of the novel—with
its series of unreliable narrators and its closing affirmation that Pi and
Richard Parker were shipmates and survived together—depends on a deep
suspension of disbelief, it fulfills the ultimate promise made by Mr. Adirubasamy
at the very beginning of the novel: that it is a story that can make one
believe in God. Whether it is in Pi’s story or God, belief can come only
through faith.