Preview

Life of Pi Background

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
544 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Life of Pi Background
Life of Pi Background
Life of Pi is a fictional novel about the incredible journey of Pi Patel as he travels across the Pacific Ocean in the company of a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. During his journey, Pi is able to learn about survival at sea and the power of faith.
Pi spends his early life in Pondicherry India. His family consists of his parents and his older brother Ravi. Because he grew up in a zoo, Pi learns at an early age many things about animal psychology and behavior. These things eventually save his life when he is on the lifeboat with Richard Parker. Other people who have influence Pi’s thinking include his uncle, who teaches him how to swim, his biology teacher Mr. Kumar, who inspires him with ideas of science and the three religious men who teach Pi their beliefs.
Pondicherry is a city on the southeast coast of India. It was colonized by the French at one time and is a very popular location for tourism. The zoo from the novel is fictional.
Being a part of a zoo-owning family, Pi develops a fascination with animals at a young age. He has a thorough understanding of how the minds of different animals work and as well as how they interact with humans. As a result of his faithful practice of three religions, Pi is also able to find peace in the natural harmony exhibited by animals. The three-toed sloth mentioned in the first pages of the book is one such example.
Pi’s father feeds a live goat to a starving tiger in an attempt to make his children understand the dangers of animals, wild or domestic. Pi and his brother are both very disturbed by what they see.
As a result of economic and political pressure, Pi’s family decides to sell the zoo and move to Canada. Pi and his family travel on the Tsimtsum, which sinks in the middle of the Pacific. Pi’s whole family dies and he is the only survivor. Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with Richar Parker and a few other animals from the zoo including Orange Juice, the hyena, and the zebra. Pi’s lifeboat

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Life Of Pi Banned Essay

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, all attention is centered on the extraordinary life of Piscine Molitor Patel. He grows up in the Pondicherry Zoo in Southern India. He quickly develops a strong love for animals and is fascinated with every aspect of their lives. As he is growing up, he becomes a devout Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. When he is a teenager, his parents decide to try to achieve a better life by moving to Canada. They plan on taking the animals with them to sell to zoos in the United States. When they are about halfway into the voyage, something goes horribly wrong on the ship, and it begins to sink. Pi is thrown into a lifeboat, along with a few different animals. Initially, it was just a hyena, orangutan, and zebra; however, a tiger soon joins as well. The…

    • 960 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Closed reading responce

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There is also Pi’s second story that he tells without animals, in which Pi himself is the tiger. From this it shows how much in fact Richard Parker taught and saved Pi. Pi learned the qualities of nobility and violence, grace and brute force, and intelligence and instinct. Pi realizes that he has to use these qualities. He must overcome his squeamishness in order to eat. He must embrace aggression in order to kill and cook things that otherwise might have killed him. He needed the qualities Richard Parker had in order to survive. In the book Pi also says, “it is animal instinct, not polite convention or modern convenience, that protects…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Pi Patel is a graduate in Religious Studies and Zoology at Toronto university and held in high esteem for his knowledge in the zoological field. The author calls him, meaning to interview him about his adventure, being referred to Pi by a man named Francis Adirubasamy. He lives in Scarborough, Canada, is small of stature and speaks very fast. He says he misses India and Richard Parker, an unknown character here.…

    • 1901 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The book Life of Pi by Yann Martel was published in 2001. The story is primarily about an Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel, who survives a shipwreck with a Bengal tiger. Unfortunately, this book is not a part of a series; the characters in the book do however, have an interesting relationship with the author. Yann Martel is from Canada, as stated in the book. The Patel family was moving to Canada, this is also the place Piscine “lives” currently. Martel got the inspiration from his story in Pondicherry, the originally home of the Patel family. Although the meeting of the two was in a sense ironic, it is still the perfect commencement for this realistic fiction.…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    His faith is tested as an adolescent when his father is forced to give up the family zoo, where Pi realises he's been as much a captive as the animals themselves. A Japanese freighter becomes a temporary ark on which the Patel family take the animals to be sold in Canada. But it's struck by a storm as dramatic as anything ever put on the screen, and Pi becomes a combination of Noah, Crusoe, Prospero and Job. Alone above the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Pacific, he's an orphan captaining a lifeboat with only a zebra, a hyena, a female orang-utan and the gigantic Bengal tiger Richard Parker for company.…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    On the journey, the ship sinks and Pi finds himself alone in a life boat, adrift at sea. He soon discovers that he is not the only survivor, but shares his raft with an escaped hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a 450 pound Bengal tiger, named Richard Parker. Although Pi is confronted with the dangers of these wild animals at sea, his extraordinary knowledge of animal behaviour, along with his faith and determination, allow him to survive, even after the other animals have fallen victim to the tiger’s predatory instincts.…

    • 5330 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, Piscine Molitor Patel illustrates the suffering of a survivor following a major traumatic event. After a cargo ship carrying a full zoo and all of Pi’s family sinks, Pi is left with a few animals and his thoughts to keep him company. While at sea, his supplies dwindle and he has to resort to extreme measures. These measures come into full effect when Pi’s boat leads him to another survivor. The characters of Pi and the other survivor, a French man, portray how the need to survive can force these survivors to resort to savage actions.…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    New Essay Discovery

    • 959 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The film Life of Pi explores the concept that discoveries allow man to access to a higher plane of spiritual and self-understanding. Through Pi’s strong connection with his multi-religious and cultural background, Ang Lee demonstrates his struggle between pragmatism and faith when he is stranded at the Pacific. For instance, Pi is enforced to disobey a tenet of his Hindu faith and hammer the dorado to death so that his predatory companion has something to sustain on. Yet his childhood sincerity that animals have souls and his exceptional sympathy for them bring about a sense of remorse .The saturated green colour and the accompanying diegetic sound portrays fish’s vicious slaughter and his pained expression having to disregard his culture - the Indian vegetarianism. To overcome this trauma, Pi associates the sacrifice of the fish as a mean of saviour using the symbolism of the legends about the Vishnu god in Hinduism “Thank you Vishnu for coming in the form of a fish and saving our lives”. Evidently, Pi’s childhood exploration of divinity alters when he finds himself in the middle of the ocean. Ingenuity and tolerance lies beneath his attempt to balance the reality and faith rather than primarily favour one side or the other .This change indicates that he becomes increasingly aware of his capability from co-existing with Richard Parker, facing starvation and near extinction. Insightfully, the film proposes that religion or reality is not entirely contrasting through his successful manipulation of the twos to stay consistently…

    • 959 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Life Of Pi Theme Analysis

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages

    While reading the book The Life of Pi you come across a ton of themes. There is not just one theme to pick from and the entire book is not just black and white. The Life of Pi is an amazing story about how a young man went against all the odds and survived something that most would see as certain death. The theme that I picked out for this book is the boundaries between humans and animals.…

    • 353 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life Of Pi Analysis

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Why don’t we start in Pi’s childhood, where it all began? Pi grew up in a small town in India. He grew up in the zoo environment, with his dad being the ZooKeeper. So, that very clearly…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The second reason for The Life of PI on religion/spiritual. Patel learns to become very spiritual during his 227 days of being stranded on a lifeboat. He starts to understand of how this world understands by learning through just one animal the bengal tiger. Even though it didn’t talk to him personally like a human would. But it showed him through the most effective way of showing a human being and that is through action. He learned that everything has a place in this world. When he delivers food and water to the tiger he learns to coexist with the tiger and begin to start a relationship with the…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In many religions, those devoted to God would attend religious activities that would bring them closer together. In this case, Pi willingly gave his old life up for Richard Parker and gain an understanding how animals have to fend for itself in order to survive. Together, they went through trials and tribulations, and Pi was upset that Richard Parker left without a goodbye for he believes in “form [and] give things in meaningful shape” (316). This hints that Pi looks up to Richard Parker as a divine and turn to his “help” at the beginning. Even though it was not as evident, their relationship is similar to one with God of mutual love and trust, which is demonstrated when Richard Parker chose to kill the blind Frenchman rather than Pi. He is repaying him for keeping him alive, and did not plot to kill him when he is most vulnerable. The tiger gave him the protection throughout his journey to fulfil his promise to get him on land, which is similar to how God will exchange in return if one believe or is deemed worthy in their devotion to him for something much…

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Siddhartha and Life of Pi

    • 385 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Siddhartha tells the story of a man searching for peace; Life of Pi captivates the life of a boy trying to comprehend the world around him. Both protagonists, Siddhartha and Piscine Patel, use a type of “guess-and-check” system while venturing through the world. Throughout his lifetime, Siddhartha is a Brahmin, Samana, businessman, and ferryman. Meanwhile Piscine as a young boy tries to follow three different religions at the same time. Looking at the world through different perspectives taught both Siddhartha and Pi how to live and understand life.…

    • 385 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Life of Pi

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Life of Pi is the kind of story that really makes you think. There were so many different aspects of the book that I didn’t understand when we started reading that make sense now. One of those features is Pi’s story. During the time when we read that section of the book I didn’t even think about the truth behind it, I just read. Now that we have finished the book and we got to hear both of Pi’s stories, I’m not sure which I believe, but if I had to choose I would say the one with the animals is real. After saying that I do think that Pi is a reliable narrator. I think the first story he tells is nothing but the real truth. In the authors note, in the beginning of the book, the person talking to Yann Martel says, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” (page x) I think that this “tall order” as Yann Martel says, was filled.…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Life Of Pi Survival Essay

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Life of Pi, a novel written by Canadian author Yann Martel, is the incredible story of how 16-year old teenager Pi Patel survives 227 days trapped in a lifeboat with only a large 450-pound Bengal tiger for company. During his 7-month ordeal over the vast Pacific ocean, misery, hunger, and desperation threaten to blot out his existence, but with the help of his worst enemy and God, he pushes on. As he is forced to adapt to his new environment to survive, Pi finds himself forced into a harsh world where the best of the best survive.…

    • 1294 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays