<P> Two hundred and twenty - seven days after the ship's sinking, the lifeboat washes onto a beach in Mexico, after which Richard Parker disappears into the nearby jungle without looking back, leaving Pi heartbroken at the abrupt farewell . </P> <P> The third part of the novel describes a conversation between Pi and two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport, who are conducting an inquiry into the shipwreck . They meet him at the hospital in Mexico where he is recovering . Pi tells them his tale, but the officials reject it as unbelievable . Pi then offers them a second story in which he is adrift on a lifeboat not with zoo animals, but with the ship's cook, a Taiwanese sailor with a broken leg, and his own mother . The cook amputates the sailor's leg for use as fishing bait, then kills the sailor himself as well as Pi's mother for food, and soon he is killed by Pi, who dines on him . </P> <P> The investigators note parallels between the two stories . They soon conclude that the hyena symbolizes the cook, the zebra the sailor, the orangutan Pi's mother, and the tiger represents Pi . Pi points out that neither story can be proven and neither explains the cause of the shipwreck, so he asks the officials which story they prefer: the one without animals or the one with animals . They eventually choose the story with the animals . Pi thanks them and says: "And so it goes with God ." The investigators then leave and file a report . </P> <P> Life of Pi, according to Yann Martel, can be summarized in three statements: "Life is a story...You can choose your story...A story with God is the better story ." A recurring theme throughout the novel seems to be believability . Pi at the end of the book asks the two investigators "If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for?" According to Gordon Houser there are two main themes of the book: "that all life is interdependent, and that we live and breathe via belief ." </P>

In the life of pi who do the animals represent
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