Life of Pi by Yann Martel
by Barry Wright
Essay: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Pages: 10
Rating: 3 stars
Download Links:
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel.pdf
• Life of Pi by Yann Martel.doc
Want Some Pi?
A piece of cake? This story is more like a slice of pie. To make this pie you will need ingredients that aren’t usually
in pie. The ingredients you will need include a multi-religious 16 year old Indian boy, an adult male Bengal tiger, a
Zebra, and a hyena. You will then mix all of the ingredients up in the middle of the Pacific Ocean all in the confines
of a 26 foot lifeboat and then you will let it sit for 227 days. The tremendous survival story is called Life of Pi by
Yann Martel. Although Martel’s story may be confusing at times, when Pi comes upon the island, he manages to
capture the reader's mind with his intricate details and his almost too real imagery.
Piscine Molitor Patel, the protagonist, grew up in the city of Pondicherry, India. In Pondicherry, Piscine’s father
owned, founded and directed the Pondicherry zoo, “To me, it was paradise on earth,” Piscine is mentioned this
because he found that the zoo was a place of peacefulness (Martel 14). Piscine Molitor Patel received his name
from a swimming pool that Mamaji taught Piscine to swim in. Later on in the novel Piscine starts having people
refer to him as Pi Patel. He chose this nickname because the kids at his school would call him pissing instead of
Piscine, “”Where's Pissing? I've got to go." Or: "You're facing the wall. Are you Pissing?" Or something of the sort.”
This is one of the examples of the kids making fun of his name. (Martel 20).
Prior to part II of the story Pi learns that his family will be moving to Canada to avoid the political turmoil in India.
Pi’s family takes a Japanese cargo ship, the Tsimtsum, with select animals that Pi’s father will be selling to
American and Canadian zoos.
On the first few pages of part II the ship Pi’s fam...