Life of Pi Notes and Background Information

1. Life of PiNotes and Background Information

2. 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

3. Setting

4. 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.

5. Places in Pondicherry Place de la Republic Pondicherry Seafront Aurobindo Ashram

6. 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 emergency”—this 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 people’s rights and jailed her opponents—yet India was economically successful. • In Life of Pi, Pi’s father gets nervous about the possibility of Gandhi taking over his business—and so this causes him to make the decision to move to Canada.

7. 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 pool—and, 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.

8. The Author of the Story • Narrator of the (fictitious) Author’s Note. He inserts himself into the narrative at several points throughout the text. (Watch for italic print.) • Though the author who pens the Author’s 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 Pi’s life story during a trip to India.

9. Francis Adirubasamy • Elderly man who tells the author Pi’s 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.

10. Pi’s Family • Ravi is Pi’s popular older brother, who prefers sports to schoolwork. • He teases Pi about his devotion to three different religions • Santosh Patel is Pi’s 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 Pi’s interest in three religions. • Difficult conditions in India prompt Santosh to move the family to Canada.

11. More Family Members … • Gita Patel is Pi’s 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 Pi’s religious declarations. • Gita speaks her mind and lets Santosh know when she disagrees with his parenting ideas.

12. Satish Kumar • Pi’s 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.

13. 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.

14. Satish Kumar (yes, again!) • A plain-featured Muslim mystic with the same name as Pi’s biology teacher. • Mr. Kumar works in a bakery. • Like the “other” Mr. Kumar, this man has a strong effect on Pi’s academic plans; his faith leads Pi to study religion at college.

15. Concepts • The Will to Live • The Importance of Storytelling • The Nature of Religious Belief • Monomyth (The Hero’s Journey)

16. 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. The Will to Live

17. 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.

18. 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 The Nature of Religious Belief

19. 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 Motifs

20. The Monomyth (Hero’s Journey)

21. Pi’s name Not just a shortened version of Piscine Allegorical figure with multiple levels of meaning The color orange symbolizes hope and survival Symbols

22. 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.

23. Narrative Structure • Frame story: The fake Author’s Note frames the rest of the story. • After the Author’s Note, Life of Pi is written in three sections • the first is Pi’s 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 Pi’s character development — and other things we will discuss.

24. 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.

25. 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 Pi’s transformation.

26. Part Three • The last section of the novel represents Pi’s ultimate maturation, in which he is able to articulate life’s importance • It is in this section that the theme of the novel is communicated to the reader.

27. 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 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 Life of Pi can be classified as: