Summary
Life of Pi is a wonderful
story by Yann Martel. In which a man, Piscine Molitor Patel, which was named
after a famous pool in france, but later named just Pi because he wrote the pi
number on the board. He lived a very religious life and his parents were owners
of a zoo, which Pi loved since little. Pi believed in tree religions
christianity, Islam, Hinduism. Then after political problems in India were Pi,
Ravi and his parents lived, had to move to Canada for a better future for Pi,
Ravi. Pi and his family were in his way to canada in a japanese ship, they
carried with them all the animals in the zoo. During the way a very powerful
storm strike the sea, a huge wave sank the boat above the Mariana trench. Due
to miracle circumstances, the only one who survived was Pi, and 4 animals, a
tiger, a hyena, a orangutan, and a tiger. The hyena killed the orangutan and
the zebra but after all the tiger killed the hyena. Pi then build a raft apart
because the tiger was dangerous. Throughout the voyage they became friends and
learned to survive together, during their way Pi and Robert Parker(the name of
the tiger), found a island in which they found food and water, but later Pi
discovered that the island was carnivorous. They after that finally had a long
travel to mexico coast were he was found by some farmers but Robert Parker
escaped to the jungle, Pi never see him again.
Characters
Piscine Molitor Patel:
Protagonist and narrator of the story. A student of zoology and religion, Pi is
deeply intrigued by the habits and characteristics of animals and people.
Richard Parker: The Royal
Bengal tiger with whom Pi shares his lifeboat.
Ravi: Pi’s older brother.
Ravi prefers sports to schoolwork.
Santosh Patel: Pi’s father.
He once owned a Madras hotel, but because of his deep interest in animals
decided to run the Pondicherry Zoo
Gita Patel: Pi’s beloved
mother and protector. A book lover, she encourages Pi to read widely.
Satish Kumar: Pi’s atheistic
biology teacher at Petit Séminaire, a secondary school in Pondicherry.
Father Martin: The Catholic
priest who introduces Pi to Christianity after Pi wanders into his church.
Animals in boat
Hyena: ugly looking beastly
animal.
Zebra: a large male zebra
which broke his leg when jumping onto the boat, and is eaten by the hyena.
Orange juice: a female
orangutan, who also felt loneliness and sickness like Pi, which came onto the
boat in a floating raft of bananas and was eaten by the hyena.
Symbolism
Pi: Very symbolic character
just his name symbolizes a famous piscine in france and Pi, the radial symbol
of algebra which means lots of numbers. He symbolizes innocence, freedom and
faith.
Pi's Dad: Guidance, since the
beginning of the novel the dad guided him and taught him basic survival and
moral rules in life.
Pi's Mother: symbolizes
Support, she always supported him and accepted him
Robert Parker: symbolizes
Companion and Wildness, because with him he had company and didn't felt alone,
although had some problems in the beginning
Personal Opinion
The story was very
interesting and inspiring. It looked boring and uninteresting but after all it
worth reading. The story shows how religions can all be the same and teach us
how to think and see different to our world, looking at the good side, and the
part at the end were you needed to choose in between the two stories Pi told in what really happened throughout his voyage was very clever.
Themes
- Hope: The will to survive, to believe in miracles, faith.
- Religion: Meaning to your life
- Wild: Sometimes humans behave like animals like in the ancient ages were kill someone was normal.
Religion
In the book the different types of religions were at peace and didn't fight each other, eventually, Pi united them by believing in all three, which is the opposite to religion in the middle ages where people of different religions fought each other no matter how much they resembled, like the wars in Europe between Protestantism and Christianity, they are basically the same.
Message
This story has plenty of messages but in all the
most important one was to have faith in something, referring to have faith in
god, it can lead you to keep hope of surviving, and seeing the world in a better and peaceful way rather than seeing the world in a logical and very tragical but more believable way. Like Pi explains to us at the end, between which of the two stories to believe.
