Life of Pi Notes and Background Information

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Life of PiNotes and Background Information
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Yann Martel

• Born in 1963 to Canadian parents while living in
  Spain
• First published The Facts Behind the Helsinki
  Roccamatios, a collection of short stories
• Writing career took off with Life of Pi
• Won the Mann Booker prize awarded for best
  English-language novel written by a Commonwealth
  or Irish author
• Translated into thirty languages
• Screen rights purchased by Fox

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Setting
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Information about Pondicherry

• India was a British colony for nearly 200 years.
• However, Pondicherry was once the capital of
  French India and so it retains its French
  culture.

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Places in Pondicherry
Place de la Republic
Pondicherry Seafront
Aurobindo Ashram
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Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi

• In 1975 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found
  guilty of charges related to her 1971 election
  campaign.
• Because of unrest in India, she kept ruling and
  declared a state of emergencythis time period
  known as the Emergency period. It lasted 18
  months and ended in March 1977.
• It was a controversial time period because she
  took away peoples rights and jailed her
  opponentsyet India was economically successful.
• In Life of Pi, Pis father gets nervous about the
  possibility of Gandhi taking over his
  businessand so this causes him to make the
  decision to move to Canada.

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Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi)

• The protagonist of the story.
• Piscine is the narrator for most of the novel,
  and his account of his seven months at sea forms
  the bulk of the story.
• He gets his unusual name from the French word
  for pooland, more specifically, from a pool in
  Paris in which a close family friend, Francis
  Adirubasamy, loved to swim.
• A student of zoology and religion, Pi is quite
  interested and intrigued by the habits and
  characteristics of animals and people.

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The Author of the Story

• Narrator of the (fictitious) Authors Note. He
  inserts himself into the narrative at several
  points throughout the text. (Watch for italic
  print.)
• Though the author who pens the Authors Note
  never identifies himself by name, there are many
  clues that indicate it is Life of Pi author Yann
  Martel himself.
• Thinly disguised Martel lives in Canada, has
  published two books, and was inspired to write
  Pis life story during a trip to India.

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Francis Adirubasamy

• Elderly man who tells the author Pis story
  during a chance meeting at a Pondicherry coffee
  shop.
• Adirubasamy taught Pi, as a child, to swim and
  gave him his unusual moniker.
• He arranges for the author to meet Pi in person,
  to get a first-hand account of his strange and
  compelling tale.
• Pi calls Adirubasamy Mamaji, an Indian term
  meaning respected uncle.

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Pis Family

• Ravi is Pis popular older brother, who prefers
  sports to schoolwork.
• He teases Pi about his devotion to three
  different religions
• Santosh Patel is Pis father, who runs the
  Pondicherry Zoo.
• He worries continuously and teaches his sons to
  fear animals.
• Raised a Hindu but not a religious man. He is
  puzzled by Pis interest in three religions.
• Difficult conditions in India prompt Santosh to
  move the family to Canada.

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More Family Members

• Gita Patel is Pis beloved mother and protector.
• She loves books and encourages Pi to read widely.
• Raised a Hindu with a Baptist education, Gita
  does not subscribe to any religion and questions
  Pis religious declarations.
• Gita speaks her mind and lets Santosh know when
  she disagrees with his parenting ideas.

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Satish Kumar

• Pis atheist biology teacher at Petit Seminaire,
  a secondary school in Pondicherry.
• Satish, a polio survivor, is an odd-looking man
  with a triangular-shaped body.
• His devotion to the power of scientific inquiry
  and explanation inspires Pi to study zoology in
  college.

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Father Martin

• Catholic priest who introduces Pi to Christianity
  after Pi wanders into his church.
• Father Martin preaches a message of love.
• Father Martin, the Muslim Mr. Kumar, and the
  Hindu Pandit disagree about whose religion Pi
  should practice.

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Satish Kumar (yes, again!)

• A plain-featured Muslim mystic with the same name
  as Pis biology teacher.
• Mr. Kumar works in a bakery.
• Like the other Mr. Kumar, this man has a strong
  effect on Pis academic plans his faith leads Pi
  to study religion at college.

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Themes

• The Will to Live
• The Importance of Storytelling
• The Nature of Religious Belief

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The Will to Live

• Life of Pi is a story about struggling to survive
  through seemingly insurmountable odds
• As Martel makes clear in his novel, living
  creatures will often do extraordinary,
  unexpected, and sometimes heroic things to
  survive.
• However, people will also do shameful and
  barbaric acts if pressed.

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The Importance of Storytelling

• The Importance of Storytelling
• The novel is framed by a (fictional) note from
  the author who describes how he first came to
  hear the fantastic tale of Piscine Molitor Patel.
  
• Within the framework of Martel's narration is
  Pi's fantastical first-person account of life on
  the open sea, which forms the bulk of the book.
• At the end of the novel, a transcript taken from
  an interrogation of Pi reveals the possible
  true story within that story.

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The Nature of Religious Belief

• Life of Pi begins with an old man in Pondicherry
  who tells the narrator, I have a story that will
  make you believe in God.
• Storytelling and religious belief are two closely
  linked ideas in the novel.
• Each of Pi's three religions, Hinduism,
  Christianity, and Islam, come with its own set of
  tales and fables, which are used to spread the
  teachings and illustrate the beliefs of the
  faith.

• Stories and religious beliefs are also linked in
  Life of Pi because Pi asserts that both require
  faith on the part of the listener or devotee

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Motifs

• Territorial dominance
• Though Martel's text deals with the seemingly
  boundless nature of the sea, it also studies the
  strictness of boundaries, borders, and
  demarcations.

• Hunger and thirst
• The characters in Life of Pi are continually
  fixated on food and water.
• Ironically, the lifeboat is surrounded by food
  and water however, the salty water is
  undrinkable and the food is difficult to catch.
• Ritual
• characters achieve comfort through the practice
  of rituals

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Symbols

• Pis name
• Not just a shortened version of Piscine
• Allegorical figure with multiple levels of
  meaning
• The color orange
• symbolizes hope and survival

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Point of View

• Yann Martel wrote Life of Pi in a first person
  perspective.
• Pi Patel tells his own story life through his
• childhood, including 227 intriguing days
  spent
• on a life raft.
• As a traditional first person narrative, the
  information that the narrator knows -- the reader
  also knows. This is altered a little in Life of
  Pi because the story is recounted after the event
  so wisdom and hindsight are also a part of the
  novel.

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Narrative Structure

• Frame story The fake Authors Note frames the
  rest of the story.
• After the Authors Note, Life of Pi is written in
  three sections
• the first is Pis childhood synopsis
• the second is the 227-day journey across the
  ocean to North America
• the third is his experience with the reporters
• These formal elements help to define the
  different aspects of Pis character development
  and other things we will discuss.

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Part One

• The first section describes Pi as a little boy in
  both physical terms and developmental terms.
• In this section, Martel describes a young boy
  amazed with the world and all that is in it.

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Part Two

• The next section of the novel is dedicated to the
  main mode of character development. This aspect
  of the novel describes the origin of Pis
  transformation.

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Part Three

• The last section of the novel represents Pis
  ultimate maturation, in which he is able to
  articulate lifes importance
• It is in this section that the theme of the novel
  is communicated to the reader.

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Purpose of Narrative Structure

• Martel uses the form of the novel to delineate
  different parts to different areas of the / Pis
  developmental process
• In this way, the theme is gradually introduced to
  the reader.
• The reader can endure the same journey that Pi
  encountered.
• The form of the novel is key to understanding the
  novel.

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Life of Pi can be classified as

• postcolonial novel, because of its
  post-independence Indian setting as well as its
  Canadian authorship
• a work of magical realism, because fantastical
  elementssuch as animals with human personalities
  or an island with cannibalistic treesappear in
  an otherwise realistic setting
• a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age tale

• 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

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The Movie

• Life Of Pi YouTube
• Coming to a theater near you November 21, 2012.