ENG3U REFERENCE SHEETS: UNIT 5 FALL 09/10

ENG3U REFERENCE SHEETS: UNIT 5 FALL 09/10
‘LIFE OF PI’ By Yann Martel

REVISION TIPS

•   Read through the collected Content Quiz sheets already completed in class; they will
    serve as a quick memory aide, and cover the relevant themes and plot elements.
•   Read the accompanying plot summary, then review the reference sheet material. This
    will help integrate the questions and topics within the larger framework of the novel.

PLOT SUMMARY

The Author’s Note, preceding Chapter 1, explains that the author has traveled to India,
restless and in need of inspiration for a story. At a coffeehouse in Pondicherry, an elderly
man named Francis Adirubasamy strikes up a conversation with the author saying, “I have
a story that will make you believe in God.” He refers the author to Piscine Molitor Patel who
lives in Toronto, Canada. The novel then begins in Piscine’s voice.

Piscine is an ardent teenager growing up in Pondicherry, an area of southern India that was
once part of French India. The family, consisting of Piscine, his parents, and his playfully
irritating older brother, Ravi, is happy. His life is rich with unique and wonderful educational
opportunities. His father runs the Pondicherry Zoo where Piscine learns the psychology
and husbandry of animals. (One such lesson in the workings of the natural world comes
when Piscine’s father explicitly demonstrates for Piscine and Ravi how a starving Bengal
tiger reacts to a goat being introduced into its pen.) Piscine’s mother reads widely and has
an extensive assortment of books and literature which Piscine is encouraged to explore. In
addition, Piscine’s thirst for knowledge is nurtured by good schools and excellent teachers,
in particular his atheist science teacher, Mr. Kumar, who inspired Piscine to study zoology.

Piscine is named after a famous swimming pool in France. A good friend of the family,
Francis Adirubasamy, had been a champion competitive swimmer and touts the glory of
the Piscine (pool) Molitor in Paris and thereby influences the parents’ choice of the name.
Schoolmates tease Piscine (pronounced Pea - seen) calling him “pissing.” In response to
this verbal bullying, when Piscine enters the next level of school he rushes up to the
blackboard during roll and announces his full name, underlining the first syllable, instructing
all to know him as “Pi.” He proceeds to illustrate his new name with the mathematical
explanation of the Greek letter pi, the “letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin
roof.” The name catches on and Pi is thrilled.

Along with his search for knowledge, Pi is also in search of God. He grew up Hindu, but at
age 14, he meets Jesus Christ via a Catholic priest named Father Martin. He asks to be
baptized. Soon after, he meets another Mr. Kumar, this one a devoutly practicing Muslim,
and converts to Islam as well. Pi happily practices all three religions simultaneously, even
asks his father to buy him a prayer rug so he can face Mecca to pray. Once, upon a
chance meeting at the zoo, the priest (Catholic), the pandit (Hindu), the imam (Muslim), and
Pi’s parents discover Pi’s triple religious affiliation and argue that Pi must choose one. Pi
responds, embarrassed, that he just wants to love God.

As the adult Pi narrates his story, he includes seemingly random, but informative
discussions of religion, zoology, and Indian culture. During the interview process, the
author also interjects his own observations about Pi, his home, and even his cooking.

Despite the abundance of wonder in Pi’s India, there is political unrest. At 16, Pi does not
fully understand the politics, but he knows that it is Mrs. Gandhi’s actions that cause his
father to decide to close the zoo and relocate to a better life in Canada. The zoo animals
are sold, mostly to zoos in America, packed up, and loaded onto a freighter called the
Tsimtsum, to travel to Winnipeg, Canada with the family. However, midway across the
Pacific, the ship sinks.

Pi is the only survivor, in a lifeboat with a hyena and a zebra with a broken leg. He sees
another survivor, Richard Parker, swimming frantically. Pi calls to him and throws him a
lifebuoy. Full of panic and despair over losing his family, Pi encourages Richard Parker to
swim to the lifeboat. Richard Parker finally makes it and jumps in to the boat. Pi comes to
his senses and realizes that he has just invited Richard Parker, a 450 pound Bengal tiger
into the lifeboat. Pi “turned around, stepped over the zebra and threw [him]self overboard.”

Now even more frightened of the black depths of the ocean and the triangular fins nearby,
Pi wedges an oar under the tarpaulin at the bow of the boat and pulls himself out of the
water. He decides that he might possibly survive if the tiger stays under the tarpaulin and
he stays quiet and still on top. So he inches up the oar and reboards the boat.

A short distance away, Pi sees Orange Juice, a female orangutan, drifting toward the boat
on a raft of netted bananas. When she nears, she climbs on board. What follows is a week
of terror as Pi watches the gruesome food chain play out. The hyena eats the zebra, alive.
Then after repeated screaming matches and mutual batting, the hyena finally eats the
orangutan. Richard Parker eats the hyena.

The majority of the rest of the story is about Pi’s 227 days at sea. He soon realizes that his
only hope for survival is to tame Richard Parker. Oars and lifejackets are tied together to
make a raft that will float, tethered, behind the lifeboat. This is Pi’s “safe zone.” Drawing on
his knowledge of animal behavior, Pi convinces Richard Parker that he is the alpha male.
He uses the whistles from the life jackets as his tamer’s whip and “treats” from the ocean
as behavior rewards. He marks his territory, his half of the lifeboat, with urine and vomit.
Though he is still in fear of the tiger, Pi keeps Richard Parker at bay by keeping him
supplied with food and fresh water until he feels safe enough to spend time on the lifeboat,
not just on the raft.

Over time, Pi develops a deepening bond with Richard Parker. A sort of zookeeper/animal
relationship maintains the truce. But more than that, Richard Parker becomes Pi’s reason
for living. The formerly vegetarian Pi learns to kill and eat anything he can, and shares his
catch with the tiger. He includes prayer in his daily routine and often marvels at the
splendor of nature. However, as months drag on Pi’s and the tiger’s health deteriorate.
They both lose their vision temporarily. Incredibly, while blind, Pi drifts into the lifeboat of
another blind castaway. At first Pi thinks he is hallucinating about a conversation with the
tiger, but then realizes it is indeed another man. The two men talk about food at length. Not
knowing about Richard Parker, the other castaway boards Pi’s boat with the intent of killing

and eating Pi. Dramatically, the tiger’s killer instinct saves Pi as well as provides Richard
Parker with a meal. Pi is distraught over the other man’s death and cries so hard that his
tears actually help to clean out his eyes and partially restore his vision.

In cycles of hope and despair, it soon seems that the possibility of survival is lost. Barely
alive, Pi and the tiger drift into a floating island that seems to be made of knotted masses
of algae. Richard Parker climbs off of the boat onto the island. Pi samples the algae as
food. The two stay on the island and regain their strength, returning to the boat at night. Pi
discovers thousands of meerkats living on the island, as well as freshwater ponds. At night,
the meerkats take to the trees. On attempting to stay in the trees one night with the
meerkats, Pi discovers to his horror that the algae that makes up the island secretes acid
at night that will digest anything left on its surface. Pi finds human teeth within the algae
and concludes that it is a carnivorous island that may have even digested a previous
castaway who died there. Alarmed, Pi returns to life adrift on the boat, which has become a
butchery, a circus ring, and a place of prayer.

When they reach land (Mexico), Pi is exhausted and weak. Richard Parker simply gets out
of the lifeboat and disappears into the jungle. Officials representing the shipping company
of the Tsimtsum come to Mexico to question the recovering Pi. They find Pi’s story of his
227 days at sea too implausible to believe. Pi counters their incredulity with facts and
reason, but the investigators are still doubtful. So Pi tells them a completely different story,
a story that includes in the lifeboat Pi’s mother, a sailor with a broken leg, and a French
cook.

The second story has murder and cannibalism, but no animals and no floating island. One
investigator notes the parallels between the people and the animals of the two stories, but
the other dismisses them. They seem satisfied. Pi says to the men, “In both stories the ship
sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer,” to illustrate that there is no factual difference in
the outcomes of the two stories. He then asks the men which story they prefer. They admit
to preferring the story with the animals, the better story. “And so it goes with God,” is Pi’s
response. The better story is what ends up in the men’s report.

Summary courtesy of thebestnotes.com

KEY EVENTS AND THEMES REFERENCE

1. The AUTHOR’S NOTE preceeds Part One, and sets the scene for the introduction of Pi
   Patel to the reader. On page viii the author narrates how he is introduced to Pi’s story
   by an elderly man. “I have a story that will make you believe in God”. This indicates that
   RELIGION will be a key theme of the story.

2. In PART ONE, Pi prefaces his tale by describing his life after his adventure concludes,
   back in Canada. It is clear that in the aftermath, he has suffered a great deal, but no
   explanation is offered - p7. This foreshadowing whets our appetite for hearing the rest
   of the tale. But just to remind us that it is a story, the AUTHOR intrudes in Chapter 2,
   describing Pi. This “documentary” approach is used to persuade us of the reality of the
   events that will follow.
3. In Chapter 3, we are introduced to the story of Pi’s unusual name – he was originally
   named Piscine Molitor Patel after the Piscine Molitor swimming pool in Paris, France,

in honour of his father’s business friend Francis Adirubasamy, who was an avid
   swimmer.

4. Chapter 4 deals with the zoo at Pondicherry, purchased by his father Santosh Patel,
    p14 – 20. This also covers an extended commentary on the nature of wild animals in
   captivity. So ZOOS, and the nature of animals are also introduced as themes, the
   surprise being that animals actually respond well to responsible captivity.

5. Chapter 5 illustrates how Pi got his unusual name – p24-26. He names himself after the
   mathematical symbol of 3.14, rather than endure being called “Pissing” by the other
   school kids.

6. RELIGION returns as a theme in Chapter 7, with the introduction of Mr Satish Kumar,
   Pi’s biology teacher, and the first avowed atheist that Pi meets. P28-31.
   Pi’s hatred of agnosticism, as opposed to atheism, is detailed in p31 – “I’ll be honest
   about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics”. “To choose doubt
   as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation”.

7. Chapters 8 – 14 cover the nature of animals in more depth, and introduces his father’s
   view that the most dangerous animal is Animalus Anthropomorphicus, or man’s
   tendency to see an animal acting as if in a human way. Chapter 8 describes Pi’s
   witnessing of a captive tiger killing a goat, ending with his brother Ravi’s threat to him
   that he will be “the next goat” p43. The goat killing is organized by his father to educate
   him about the dispassionate cruelty of nature – animals will do what it takes to
   SURVIVE, without pity So the cost of SURVIVAL is another theme introduced. But
   dangerous predators can be tamed, as with the lion described in p49…

8. Chapters 15-28 cover the central issue of RELIGION in more detail, with Pi eventually
   becoming a Muslim, much to his parents bemusement.

9. Chapter 32 introduces Pi’s concept of “zoomorphism” when an animal takes on a
   human being, or another kind of animal, to be one of its own - p93.

10. Chapters 29, 34 -35 cover the events surrounding the fatal decision by Pi’s father to
    sell the zoo and transport the animals and his family to Canada.

11. In Chapter 36, as in several earlier short chapters, the author describes Pi’s current
    family life, describing him playing with his daughter. He declares that this story has a
    “happy ending” p103. But the journey to a happy ending begins with the tragic events
    introduced in PART TWO.

12. PART TWO: PACIFIC OCEAN – Chapters 37-94 – covers Pi’s incredible shipwrecked
    voyage from the middle of the Pacific – “midway to Midway” p111.

13. RICHARD PARKER is introduced stranded in the water on p108 without being
    described as a three-year old Bengal tiger until p110. This suggests that the fact that
    he is a tiger is less important to Pi at this point than the fact that he offers company for
    Pi, who has lost his entire family in one stroke. Pi summons Richard Parker with a

WHISTLE that will become an important tool later…then leaps off of the lifeboat as he
   realizes he will “become the next goat”.

14. In the following chapters, from 40-53, life onboard the lifeboat is described, where the
    laws of nature and survival of the fittest play out. The ZEBRA is eaten by the HYENA, a
    voracious omnivore. ORANGE JUICE the orang-utan, who arrived on a net of bananas
    on p123, is next. But Richard Parker kills the hyena, and Pi makes good his escape to
    the raft that he constructs p165-171.

15. Chapter 48 is an exception, as it deals solely with how Richard Parker got his name.

16. FEAR is described vividly in Chapter 56 – “life’s only true opponent”, and in Chapter 57
    Pi discovers that he might actually be able to survive WITH Richard Parker if he can
    tame and train him, using rewards and punishment. P179-80 shows that Richard Parker
    can at least tolerate Pi without eating him immediately.

17. Within a week of the sinking of the TsimTsum, Pi has progressed to the stage that he is
    feeding Richard Parker with fish, and quenching his thirst with distilled water – p209.

18. Chapters 63-86 detail Pi’s increasing skill at hunting various fish and sea mammals, as
    other supplies slowly run out. They also vividly detail the increasing lengths that Pi must
    go to in order to survive, butchering turtles, birds etc with abandon, consuming
    anything he can stomach, including blood, urine, eyes, intestines etc. This from a
    former vegetarian… SURVIVAL makes this necessary.

19. Then in Chapter 86, following a near-rescue with an oil tanker, Pi realizes that it is
   Richard Parker who is saving his life, as he would die of hopelessness otherwise.
   Again, survival, and a curious bond between man and beast are key themes here –
   especially where Pi proves his dominance on p246.

20. In Chapter 90 –p267 – both Pi and Richard Parker go blind. During this period of
    blindness, Pi encounters another shipwrecked survivor, the blind Frenchman. Pi trusts
    him, only to narrowly escape being eaten by the Frenchman, as Richard Parker snacks
    on him. Pi confesses to eating a tiny piece of his flesh and using his arm as fish bait on
    p284. Again, the SURVIVAL theme, and the necessity of doing what it takes to
    survive…

21. THE ISLAND. In Chapter 92 the strange “botanical discovery” is described. This island
    appears a paradise but instead contains meerkats with no sense of fear, trees that
    consume a dead traveller, and killer algae that seeps acid at night. They escape, where
    Pi grows increasingly weary, contemplating God in Chapter 93 – “The lower you are,
    the higher your mind will want you to soar”.

22. Finally in Chapter 94 Pi’s lifeboat reaches Mexico, where Pi is rescued, and Richard
    Parker disappears.

23. PART THREE takes place in Mexico, beginning p321, Chapter 95. The Author is
    reintroduced, who then provides the reader with a transcript of the Japanese Maritime
    investigators report into the sinking of the TsimTsum, a Japanese-owned vessel.

The investigators, Tomohiro Okamoto and Atsuro Chiba, don’t believe a word of Pi’s
story, and systematically try to disprove it, beginning with the floating bananas – p324.

By p336 they are asking for a true account, without animals, that will explain the sinking
of the ship. So Pi tells them the cannibalistic horror story version – p337-345.
Finally, Pi asks them which version of his voyage they prefer, since both make no
factual difference to them. They choose the story with animals, as it is the better story.
Pi thanks them, concluding “And so it goes with God”. This relates to the better story of
life including God in it, as opposed to the doubting life of agnosticism, or atheism.

KEY THEMES:
They can be read off of the above chronological list, but here they are again.
1. THE MEANING OF LIFE – including Pi’s search for meaning.
2. RELIGION – closely related to the above theme.
3. SURVIVAL, for both animals in the food chain, and humans. How far does one have
    to go to survive?
4. FREAKS OR ABNORMALITIES OF NATURE, like the floating island.
5. ZOOLOGY and the patterns of ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR, including the examples of
    zoomorphism and the function of zoos.
6. MASTERY OVER NATURE. This connects to survival, but is a separate theme, as it
    concerns the use of the intellect to tame a beast, or the bestial side of human
    nature.
7. FAMILY and SOCIETY/CIVILISATION. Pi loses his family and makes peace with a
    tiger, but descends to a level of brutality out of necessity. By society’s standards he
    has crossed the boundary, having discovered his uncivilised side.
8. MAN’S RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE is another theme, from Pi’s bond with
    Orange Juice to his unlikely relationship with Richard Parker.
9. IDENTITY – Pi is named after a swimming pool, then a mathematical symbol. In his
    search for truth, he is also searching for himself.
10. STORYTELLING – The book is of course a story woven together with a collection of
    stories. It even asks the question of what is fictional and what is factual. Remember
    “the better story”…
11. THE TRUTH – Pi is on a voyage of discovery, where he must come to terms with
    difficult truths about himself. The book also questions how we can know what is
    really true, in other words, the limits of our knowledge. This theme directly relates to
    the search for meaning…