In Chapter 90, Pi meets a man at sea. Do you think this man is a figment of Pi's imagination or real? Why?

Since Pi’s loss of all human companionship, the novel has had little dialogue. So with the arrival of the Frenchman, who Pi and the reader both first assume to be some kind of hallucination, the novel’s form suddenly changes course in dramatic fashion. This sudden proliferation of dialogue, combined with Pi’s extremely weak state and blindness, and confused belief that he is speaking to Richard Parker, make this scene the least believable of Pi’s tale. The scene’s ending, however, makes it clear that this is also the scene that Pi would be least likely to make up—its horror would serve him no purpose. Here, then, we see one of the few instances in which Pi does not try to tell the better story: he cannot incorporate God into this awful memory. From this, we can infer that the Frenchman is not a hallucination.