Project π

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.