Life of Pi

by Yann Martel
Life of Pi
The Book

Genre: Novel (Fantasy Adventure)

First Published: September 2001
Other facts: more than ten million copies
sold.
Rejected by at least five London publishing
houses before being accepted by Knopf
Canada.
Many prizes awarded.
Translated into other languages.
Film version 2012.
Life of Pi
The Author
Name: Yann Martel
Born: June 25, 1963, Salamanca, Spain
Occupation: Novelist
Citizenship: Canada
 Plot
Young man Piscine

Bengal tiger
Lifeboat
Survival Ocean

Family zoo stormy night

immigration cargo ship shipwreck

 Settings
Pondicherry, India
 Settings
Pacific Ocean and an Island
 Settings
Tomatlan, Mexico and Canada.
Characters
A story within
a story
Various narrators and narrations

The Author (no Y.Martel) interviews Pi.

Pi (most of the story narrated in first person)
Two Japanese officials (Maritime Department of Ministry of transport)

Author’s note
Part of the story
 Names
• Piscine Molitor Patel = Pi 3.14 (swimming pool –
“Pissing”)

• Thirsty (the Bengal tiger) = Richard Parker

• Mr. Satish Kumar x 2 (biology teacher and atheist)

– (Muslim baker)
 Anthropomorphism
• Meaning

• Santosh Patel: zoo’s animals are wild not pets – tiger fed a goat -
wildness

• Pi’s talk with the tiger

 Other elements
• Duality – religious studies and zoology (Religion and science) –
(polytheism -Hinduism, Catholicism and Muslim– Vegetarianism)

• Themes: Religion – Spirituality – Natural world – Suffering – Fear

– Madness

• Motifs: Strength Love courage