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Study Guide for ENG HL: Life of PiSTUDY GUIDE
ENGLISH HOME
LANGUAGE
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
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, Study Guide for ENG HL: Life of Pi
Life of Pi – Yann Martel
Index
Background of the author
The Plot
Characters
Summary and discussion
Quotes
Themes
The literary essay
Vocabulary
Sources
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, Study Guide for ENG HL: Life of Pi
The author: Yann Martel
He was born on June 25, 1963, in Salamanca, Spain, to Emile and Nicole
Martel.
He spent his childhood living in a variety of different countries, including
Costa Rica, France, India, Iran, Mexico, Turkey, Canada and the United
States.
Yann attended Trent University from 1981 to 1984, but graduated from
Concordia University with a BA in philosophy in 1985.
He worked many different odd jobs – librarian, tree planter, dishwasher,
security guard, and parking lot attendant.
At the age of 27, he committed himself to writing.
Martel travelled to India to work on a third novel, realized the novel was
going nowhere – but then he remembered something he had read before,
and the idea of Life of Pi came to him.
Life of Pi was published in 2001 – he was awarded the Man Booker prize
and the novel became an international best seller.
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, Study Guide for ENG HL: Life of Pi
The Plot
The novel tells the fantastical story of Pi Patel, a sixteen-year-old South Indian
boy who survives at sea with a tiger for 227 days.
Pi, born Piscine Molitor Patel, grows up in the South Indian city of
Pondicherry, where his father runs a zoo.
A precocious and intelligent boy, by the age of fifteen Pi – Hindu from an early
age – has also adopted Christianity and Islam, and considers himself a pious
devotee of all three religions.
Pi’s father decides to close the Pondicherry zoo and move to Canada as he is
distressed about the government upheaval in his country. At this time, Pi is
sixteen.
Pi, his mother, father, and brother Ravi all board the Tsimtsum along with the
zoo animals (who are on the way to be sold around the world).
The ship sinks and Pi is the only human to make it onto the lifeboat and
survive.
The lifeboat also contains a hyena, a zebra, Orange Juice, the orangutan, and
Richard Parker the tiger.
The hyena kills and devours both the zebra and Orange Juice, before Richard
Parker kills the hyena.
Pi is left alone on a lifeboat with an adult male tiger.
There is no land in sight and the ocean is shark-infested, so Pi builds a raft
which he attaches to the lifeboat, to keep himself at a safer distance from the
tiger.
Eventually, however, life on the raft proves too exhausting, and Pi realizes
that if Richard Parker gets hungry enough, he will swim to the raft and kill him.
Pi decides that he must tame the tiger.
Using a whistle, seasickness, and a turtle-shell shield, Pi manages to assert
his authority over Richard Parker and delineate his own territory on the
lifeboat, where he is comparatively safe from the tiger.
While at sea, Pi and Richard Parker face many challenges, traumas,
tragedies and miraculous occurrences.
They never have sufficient food and fresh water, and the constant exposure to
the weather elements is painful.
A severe storm, which they miraculously survive, destroys the raft.
Pi manages to capture and kill a bird.
They are almost crushed by an oil tanker, which passes by without seeing
them.
During an especially severe period of starvation, Pi and Richard Parker both
go blind.
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