LIFE OF PI

Yann Martell

About the author

Spanish born Canadian author (born 25 June 1963)

The High Mountains of PortugalBeatrice and Virgil

“English is the language in which I best

express the subtlety of life. But I must say that French is the language closest to my heart. And for this same reason, English gives me a sufficient distance to write."

Basic outlineStory within a story : Author interviews Pi

Pi tells his story

Piscine Patel (Pi)

Part 1: Toronto and PondicherryPart 2: The Pacific OceanPart 3: Benito Juarez Infirmary, Tomatlan, Mexico

The Journey: 227 days

PONDICHERRY ZOO

CHARACTERS (1)

Pi (Piscine Molitor)

Protagonist

Richard Parker

Bengal Tiger

The Narrator Santosh Patel

(Pi’s father)

Gita Patel

(Pi’s mother)

Ravi Patel

(Pi’s brother)

Auntie Rohini

(Pi’s aunt. Introduces him to Hinduism

Meena Patel

(Pi’s wife)

Nikhil Patel

(Pi’s son)

Usha Patel

(Pi’s daughter)

Francis Adirubasamy(Mamji- uncle)

Family friend -swimmer

Satish Kumar

(Science teacher –atheist)

Satish Kumar

(Baker – Muslim)

CHARACTERS (2)

Father Martin

(Priest – Christian)

The blind Frenchman

(castaway)

The ship’s cook

Tomohiro Okamoto

(Japanese Ministry of Transport)

The zebra The hyena The Orang-utan

The novel can be categorised as...an adventure story

It even flirts with nonfiction genres

- the Author's Note claims that the story of Pi is a true story that the author heard while backpacking through Pondicherry

- and the novel, with its first-person narrator, is structured as a memoir

- at the end of the novel, look for interview transcripts, another genre of nonfiction writing

postcolonial novel, because of its post-Independence Indian setting as well as its Canadian authorship

a work of magical realism, because fantastical elements—such as animals with human personalities or an island with cannibalistic trees—appear in an otherwise realistic setting

a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age tale (a

novel dealing with one person's formative

years or spiritual education.)

POLITICAL BACKGROUNDLife of Pi is set against the tumultuous period of Indian history known

as the Emergency. In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty of charges related to her

1971 election campaign and was ordered to resign.

Instead—and in response to a rising tide of strikes and protests that were paralyzing the government—Gandhi declared a state of emergency, suspending constitutional rights and giving herself the power to rule by decree.

The Emergency lasted for eighteen months and was officially ended in March 1977 when Gandhi called for a new round of elections

Richard Parker

Richard Parker and shipwreck narratives

The name of Martel's tiger, Richard Parker, was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). In this book, Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship (and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger).

The author also had in mind another occurrence of the name, in the famous legal case R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) where a shipwreck again results in the cannibalism of a cabin boy named Richard Parker, this time in a lifeboat.[18] A third Richard Parker drowned in the sinking of the Francis Spaight in 1846, described by author Jack London, and later the cabin boy (not Richard Parker) was cannibalized.Having read about these events, Yann Martel thought, "So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something."

FRAME NARRATIVE in Life of Pi

• Now that we have all the layers or “voices” for our FRAME NARRATIVE, draw a diagram to represent them

Yann Martel

Author’s Note

Pi Patel the Narrator

?

Themes

Religion SpiritualitySurvival/

reliance of human spirit

Narrative framing

ScienceViewpoints/ perspectives

RealityMagical Realism

Author’s noteEntirely fictional : Aim – establish authority of narrator

Theme: the relativity of truth

Author wants to write novel – Portugal 1939

Goes to India to write

Francis Adirubasamy, “I have a story that will make you believe in God

Author hunts down Pi Patel in Toronto. Interviews him

IMPORTANT FEATURES OF PART ONE

Part one

Author meets adult Pi

How Pi gets his name.

His name creation

His “zoo” home in Pondicherry

Pi and animals. His father’s lesson

The adult Pi

His home, family

Pi’s religious belief

~Francis Adirubasamy~ Swimming pool~Teasing~Creation of Pi

~Background to family and his homeSatish Kumar – the scientist~Humanising animals

~Zoos – good or bad~The Tiger exercise

~Religious symbols~Food and cooking~ Family – Meena, son Nikhil and daughter, Usha

~Hindu – Auntie Rohini~ Chrisitian – Father Martin~ Muslim – Satish Kumar the BakerBaptism and Prayer rug