Moving beyond the Two-dimensionality of Self by Yann Martel

Abstract

Yann Martel has four novels to his account Self (1996), Life of Pi (2001), Beatrice and Virgil (2010) and his latest work The High Mountains of Portugal (2016). Since time unknown ‘animal’ characters have caught the imagination of creative writers. Be it oral epics, fables or the modern fictional narratives in recent times. Martel, our contemporary, surprisingly comes up with ‘animal’ characters in all his works. Our preoccupation with the things around us (WIGO) keeps our abstraction process mostly at verbal levels; GS tries to make us aware of silent levels. Experiencing of these silent levels could be done through keeping one’s senses open for events to happen but labeling of these events should be delayed as far as possible, because language is not well equipped to convey all. Animals abstract at lower level and thus are at these levels. This paper will also attempt to study how Martel incorporates extended scenes on how human could become aware of sensual levels.