The following is from an interview with Yann Martel:

Interviewer: In both the book and the movie, Pi tells two stories, one where he's on the lifeboat with animals, the other with humans, and in that one, the cook kills his mother and Pi kills the cook. We never find out which one is "real."

Yann Martel: The same facts — a ship sinks, 227 days later, a boy reached the coast of Mexico. Ultimately, he tells two stories. Do you want your suffering to be accepted, as everyone does? Or do you want someone who's laughing, saying, oh come on, don't be silly? Pi ultimately tells two stories to satisfy these investigators who've come from Japan. ... The investigators and therefore the readers are presented with a choice of what happened at sea. And neither can be proved. In both cases, the only witness is this one person. And there's no outward proof. There's a radical choice between these two stories. ... You have to choose: One story's more fantastical in the sense that it's fairly rare to have a castaway with a tiger, with a wild animal. The other one is a traditional theme you used to hear in high school, about man's inhumanity toward man. It's four castaways in a lifeboat and things get nasty.

What Yann Martel is discussing here, in one sense, is the power of stories and fiction. Most of us WANT to believe the story with the animals over the brutal story that Pi tells at the end. This is the power of faith and storytelling. For today, you assignment is simple:

- In a two-paragraph response, discuss how a particular work of art/fiction/story is helping you through this shut down. Right now we are all going through something unique and quite unexpected. During this time, how do stories/fiction help get your through the dark reality of this pandemic? This might be through a TV show, a video game, a piece of music, a film, or anything thing else that takes you out of reality for a few minutes. In your response, tell us what helps you get through. And as you discuss this film/game/music etc., discuss how that particular thing helps soothe you through these uncertain times.

- One paragraph of this should summarize whatever show/game/book etc. that you have turned to. Your second paragraph should discuss what it is about that particular piece of entertainment that comforts you/helps you forget reality/gets you through the difficult times.