Was Richard Parker Real?

Richard Parker was not real. He was just a symbol for Pi's wild side. Storytelling is used to give lessons or purpose to life, like in the "Life of Pi" Martel's purpose for writing the novel was to twll his readers that iur lives have meaning. The number 3.14 is not only a number but it is a number that represents different religions. Every religion has three things in common and every religion has no limit to how far one can believe like the endless number Pi. In the end, the "Life of Pi" is magical realism because a human cannot spend several months in the ocean with a tiger.