Chapters 82-91

Summary:

Many times on his long voyage, Pi almost reaches rescue...or so he thought.  He saw six birds over the course of his journey however he never encounters land after seeing them.  At one point Pi sees a large oil tanker.  It gets closer and closer and Pi is sure he will be saved.  Unfortunately, the lifeboat is directly in front of the ship and no one can see them.   In fact, if Pi did not manage to change the lifeboats direction, it would be crushed.  The ship passes them by and Pi's hopes of rescue are dashed.

Pi and Richard Parker continue to survive for many days but the elements eventually become to much.  The sun is too hot.  The food is too scarce.  The ocean is too vast.  The pair are no more than a skin and bones.  Richard Parker is blind and only a few days later Pi grows blind as well.  Pi knows the end is near and as he lays down prepared to die he hears a voice.  Pi is going mad.  For several minutes he talks to the voice.  They converse about food.  Pi speaks of various vegetarian Indian dishes but all the voice speaks of is meat.  It is Richard Parker.  They talk for several minutes.

("Still a Better Love Story Than Twilight")

Pi falls asleep but when he wakes up he hears a faint, barely audible sound.  A voice.  Pi yells and screams.  It is another castaway!  They manage to tie their lifeboats together, which is difficult because both of them are blind.  Pi welcomes the man aboard but the man tries to kill him.  Starvation has driven the man to murder.  Pi is saved by none other than Richard Parker who eats the man.  Pi weeps because, despite the fact that the man tried to kill him, he was company.  The tears help his eyes and he regains his sight.  Pi admits that after several days, there was so little food that he ate a little bit of the man.

Theme: 

Another theme has grown as Pi and Richard Parker become more and more desperate for food.  Sometimes, in a life or death situation, one must sacrifice their ethics and moral code in order to survive.  Previously, Pi was a peaceful vegetarian who would not hurt a fly but his hunger has driven him to cannibalism.  Pi admits to his savagery: "It came as an unmistakeable indication to me of how low I had sunk the day I noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that I ate like an animal, that this noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate." (Martel 225).

Sources:

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

"Still a Better Love Story Than Twilight." Quickmeme. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

Chapters 64-81

(Sullivan, Kevin P.)

Summary:

Over several weeks Pi becomes a very good fisher.  His favorite catches are sea turtles, although they are very hard earned.  However, this food comes with a price.  He "descend[s] to a level of savagery [he] never thought possible." (Martel 197).

Pi continues to try to tame Richard Parker.  By positioning the raft such that it caused the boat to lie horizontal to the waves, he is able to create a sickening rocking motion that made Richard Parker very seasick.  He starts to blow a whistle so that the tiger associates the sound of the whistle with the nauseating motion.  However, Richard Parker retaliates be knocking Pi off the boat. However Pi is persistent.    On his fifth try, he dodges the tiger and makes his point.  Pi has established himself as the alpha male.

("Opposites Photography")

Pi describes being a castaway as being caught in an endless cycle of opposites.  Light makes the day to bright and dark makes the night terrifying.  The day is hot and stifling and the night is freezing.  When there is food, it is more than one could possible eat before it spoils.  Otherwise there is no food at all.  One moment one is bored out of their mind and the next they are scared beyond compare.

Pi's status of the alpha male is confirmed one day when he catches a fish and Richard Parker fixes his eyes on him, planning on stealing the fish.  Pi stares back intently and ultimately wins the staring contest.

Hyperbole:

Pi experiences many incredible things on his journey.  To convey to the reader the greatness of some of the things he witnesses, Life of Pi contains many examples of hyperbole.  For example, when Pi is starving and he catches a fish he says "It would feed a horde.  Its eyes and spine would irrigate a desert." (Martel 221).  Another example is when Pi discovers that the solar stills have succeeded in converting sea water into fresh, drinkable water.  He says "'My sweet sea cow! ... What a delicious milk.'" (Martel 187).  The solar stills are not cows and the water is not milk but at this stage in Pi's survival the water is just as nourishing and vital.  These are a couple of many examples of hyperbole throughout the novel.

Sources:

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

"Opposites Photography." Pixshark.com. Disqus. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Sullivan, Kevin P. "First 'Hobbit' Clip Equips Bilbo For 'An Unexpected Journey'" Movies Blog. MTV, 27 Nov. 2012. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Chapters 55-63

Summary:

Pi spends a restless night in the lifeboat.  As day breaks, a realization comes to him.  Tigers from the area that Richard Parker came from are known to drink salt water and are strong swimmers.  Richard Parker could easily swim to the raft and eat him and survive on sea water.  Pi cannot outlast the tiger.
As Pi sits on his raft, racked with fear, he watches Richard Parker.  The tiger lifts his head and makes a noise known as prusten, a small puff through the nose that expresses friendly relations and no ill-will.

(trimyth)

Pi becomes grateful for Richard Parker's presence.  He would rather have the company of a tiger than no company at all.  This gratefulness allows Pi to realize that his situation was perfect for that of taming a tiger.  He has the perfect ring with no corners to his in, fish provide an endless supply or treats, and he had a whistle which could serve as a whip.  Nothing is standing in his way.  Pi Patel will tame a Bengal tiger.  Pi stands and shouts.  He blows the whistle several harsh times at Richard Parker until he retreats to under the tarpaulin.  

Later that day Pi reels the raft towards the lifeboat to get supplies.  He notices that Richard Parker has marked his territory on the boat, but only under the tarpaulin, a promising sign.  In return, Pi marks his own territory atop the tarpaulin.  

Pi spends the next few days improving his raft and learning to fish.  After much failure, Pi makes his first catch: a 3-foot long dorado.  As he kills the dorado he witnesses an incredible thing: death-knell iridescence.  As the dorado dies, it flickers and shimmers in all colors of the rainbow in rapid succession.

Solar stills become a new key to Pi's survival.  These devices harness solar power to convert salt water into fresh water.  Tending to the solar stills becomes a part of the daily routine Pi developed during the 227 days he is on the boat.  227 days.  

Metaphor:

Yann Martel deploys many elements of figurative language to help convey to the reader what Pi observes.  It is a rare thing to be a castaway, much less a castaway for seven months with a 450-pound Bengal tiger.  To assist the reader in understanding Pi's situation, Martel compares something the reader is unfamiliar with to something they are familiar with.  For example, one night as Pi looks down at the water, he discovers that "the sea is a city...[with] highways, boulevards, streets, and roundabouts bustling with submarine traffic.  In water that was dense, glassy and flecked by millions of lit-up specks of plankton, fish like trucks and buses and cars and bicycles and pedestrians were madly racing about," (Martel 175).

("Times Square")

(Melanie, Pinole)

Both have bright colors and lots of traffic.  Even if people cannot witness what it really looks like in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they can compare it to cities they have seen to get an idea of what it looks like.

Sources:

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

Pinole, Melanie. "Dive Under the Sea with These Ocean Wallpapers." Lifehacker. Kinja, 14 June 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

"Times Square." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Mar. 2015. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

trimyth.  "Krista the Bengal Tigress doing the prusten!" Online video clip.  Youtube.  YouTube, 20 Jun.  Web.  22 Mar. 2015.

Chapters 47-54

Summary:

That afternoon, the hyena and Orange Juice finally fight.  Orange Juice puts up a strong fight but could not prevail over the hyena.  Pi could not bear to watch.  After the fight ends, Pi gets up to see the result.  Orange Juice is lying beheaded on the ground.   He stands on a bench and looks down to see none other than Richard Parker.  He scrambles onto the tarpaulin and passes out.

When Pi wakes up, he is delirious and exhausted.  He has not eaten or drank since the boat sank.  Pi has no choice but to risk the hyena in order to take stock of the lifeboat.  He comes to the conclusion that the emergency supplies must to be under the tarpaulin in Richard Parker's domain.  He carefully rolls back the tarpaulin to find a locker full of supplies and life jackets.  He takes stock of his supplies and discovers that he has enough food to last 93 days and enough water to last 94 days.  Pi goes to sleep again.

When he wakes up, he realizes he must do something about Richard Parker.  He cannot push the tiger overboard and he cannot risk jumping overboard.  Instead, he builds a raft out of oars and life jackets which he ties to the lifeboat.  He was putting the finishing touches on the raft when Richard Parker emerges from under the tarpaulin.  He approaches the hyena, and promptly kills it.  Then Richard Parker slowly turns his head to see Pi and his message was clear: Pi was next.  A rat suddenly appears as if form nowhere.  It appears to be Pi's salvation until it scurries up onto the tarpaulin and onto Pi's head.  The tiger gracefully eases towards the tarpaulin to finish the two of them off but he hesitates.  The softness of the tarpaulin bothers him.  Pi throws the rat which Richard Parker eats.  Satisfied, the tiger disappears into his den beneath the tarpaulin.

(Kennedy, Joan)

Pi puts the raft into the water and spends the night getting soaked and bounced by the sea.  When he realizes he cannot survive like this until he gets help, he hatches plans to try and get the lifeboat to himself.  He will let Richard Parker become parched and die of thirst.

Imagery:

Yann Martel's use of figurative language in Life of Pi is a large part of what makes it such a popular book.  He has a remarkable ability to relate images so descriptively that the reader can practically see them.  One of the best examples of this is when Pi describes Richard Parker in chapter 53:

"His presence was overwhelming, yet equally evident was the lithesome grace of it.  He was incredibly muscular, yet his haunches were thin and his glossy coat hung loosely on his frame.  His body, bright brownish orange streaked with black vertical stripes, was incomparably beautiful, matched with a tailor's eye for harmony by his pure white chest and underside and the black rings of his long tail.  His head was large and round, displaying formidable sideburns, a stylish goatee and some of the finest whiskers of the cat world, thick, long and white.  Atop the head were small expressive ears shaped like perfect arches.  His carrot orange face had a broad bridge and a pink nose, and it was made up with a brazen flair.  Wavy dabs of black circled the face in a pattern that was striking yet subtle, for it brought less attention to itself than it did to the one part of the face left untouched by it, the bridge, whose rufous lustre shone nearly with a radiance.  The patches of white above the eyes, on the cheeks, around the mouth came off as finishing touches worthy of a Kathakali dancer." (Martel 151-152).

("Kathakali: Warring in the Hindu Heavens")

This long, descriptive passage helps the reader to practically see Richard Parker through Pi's eyes.


Sources:

"Kathakali: Warring in the Hindu Heavens." Madame Pickwick Art Blog. 13 Dec. 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

Kennedy, Joan. "Life of Pi." Memes.com. Memes. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

Chapters 37-46

Summary:

One night, Pi wakes up to a storm raging outside.  He steps outside full of excitement and the spirit of adventure, until he realizes the ship is tilting.  He goes back inside to see his family to find the inside of the ship is flooded and he cannot get to them.  The animals from the Pondicherry Zoo have somehow managed to get out of their cages and are running amok about the ship.  Pi finds crew members and tries to tell him of the problem but they do not speak English.  They toss him into a life boat and a zebra jumps into the boat after him.  As the Tsimtsum sinks, Pi sits alone in the lifeboat with no one but a zebra for company until he sees a familiar face.

(Bradford, Alina)

Pi begins to help Richard Parker onto the life boat until he realizes what he is doing.  He throws Richard a life buoy and begins to pull him in until he realizes what he is doing.  He attempts to force the adult Bengal tiger off the boat but it is no use.  He spends hours balanced on an oar sticking out of the boat.  As day breaks, Pi sees the zebra, badly injured and lying in the boat.  Richard Parker is nowhere to be found.  Suddenly, under the tarpaulin of the lifeboat, a head appeared.  It was that of a hyena.

("Hyena")

Pi comes to the conclusion that Richard Parker fell off the boat.  There was no way a hyena and a tiger could both exist in such a small space.

As the sun rose, an orangutan from the Pondicherry Zoo came floating on an island of bananas.  It was Orange Juice, the matriarch Borneo orangutan.  She came aboard the lifeboat as the pile of bananas held together by a net fell apart. Rather than saving the bananas, for some reason, Pi saves the net.

(Nagle, Maria)

Pi spends the day imagining what it will be like when a rescue boat comes and reunites him with his family.  When he brings himself to the present, he looks into the boat to see that the hyena has attacked the zebra which has somehow survived and Orange Juice appears to be very seasick.  Throughout the day, tension between Orange Juice and the hyena began to grow.  It peaked when the hyena attacked the zebra.  The result was a face off between the two animals where they screamed and made loud, aggressive noises at one another, but they did not fight.  As the sun was going down and the zebra died, he finally came to the realization that no boat was coming for him, and his family was gone.

Theme:

This far in the book, I am starting to see a theme develop.  When the sun rises after the first night in the lifeboat, Pi says "With the very first rays of light it came alive in me: hope.  As things emerged in outline and filled with colour, hope increased until it was like a song in my heart,  Oh, what it was to bask in it!  Things would work out yet.  The worst was over. I had survived the night." (Martel 119).  Hope is the only thing that allows Pi to keep fighting to get home.  The theme for this part of the book is:

Sometimes, when one are placed in a seemingly impossible situation, one must hold on to hope in order to survive.

Sources:

Bradford, Alina. "Zebra Facts." LiveScience. TechMedia Network, 17 Oct. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

"Hyena." Animals Encyclopedia. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

Nagle, Maria. "Miller Park Zoo Receives $700,000 State Grant." Pantagraph.com. Pantagraph.com, 17 June 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.

"Reach Out For Hope by Stacey Thacker - Raising Generations Today." Embrace 2015. Raising Generations Today, 11 Sept. 2013. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. 

Chapters 22-36

Summary:

Pi never told his parents about his practice of three religions, however, they inevitably found out.  One day, Pi and his parents meet a priest, an imam, and a pandit simultaneously.  They each praise Pi for his religious devotion.  His family is completely perplexed by Pi's beliefs.  When Pi gathers the courage to ask his father for a prayer rug and to be baptized, he tells Pi that he cannot practice three different religions and praying will not make a difference anyway.  Pi is persistent and speaks to his mother about it, who gives in.

During the 1970s, India was in political strife.  In fact, the entire government of Tamil Nadu collapsed.  The Patel family decided to move to Canada.  The animals had to be sold to other zoos and the paperwork was outrageous.  It was over a year before the family could move.  However, on June 21, 1977, the family finally boarded the Japanese cargo ship Tsimtsum.  

Suspense and Foreshadowing:

Chapter 36 concludes Part 1 of Life of Pi.  The first part of the book contains the introduction and rising action of the book.  Suspense is built in several ways throughout this section of the book to lead to the climax.  In the beginning of the book, Martel foreshadows how the book will end when Pi says "I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of good-bye, without looking back even once.  The pain is like an axe that chops at my heart." (Martel 6).  Martel also builds suspense when he writes from Pi's perspective about how large and ferocious animals can live with smaller, weaker animals (like in this article: http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/45-adorable-animal-odd-couples ) and how a lion tamer establishes dominance over an animal that could easily kill him.

("Lion Tamer")

Sources:

Laessig, Gavon. "45 Adorable Animal Odd Couples." BuzzFeed. Buzzfeed, Inc, 16 Aug. 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2015. 

"Lion Tamer".  Lithograph.  Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Dec. 2012. Web. 13 Mar. 2015. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_taming>.

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

Chapters 9-21

Summary:

Pi uses his knowledge and understanding of zoos to explain an animal's perception of territory and social ranking.  He explains how a ringmaster in a zoo establishes dominance and proves that he is the alpha male.  He is foreshadowing how he is able to survive on a small lifeboat with a tiger for company.

Pi then explains the role of religion in his life.  He was born and raised as a Hindu.  Just like any religion, Hinduism is a unique faith.  This video explains the basics of Hinduism (the end of the video was cut off but the last part covered Buddhism, not Hinduism):

When he was fourteen years old, he went exploring in a town where his family was vacationing.  He entered a church where he met Father Martin who related to him the story of Jesus Christ.  This video explains the story that Father Martin told Pi:

There were many things that Pi did not understand about Jesus.  He did not understand how God could let His Son die.  Why not leave death to humanity?  Why does Jesus suffer, unlike the powerful gods of Hinduism?  What inspiration can the Son provide to humanity?  Why does he appear only once for a brief time; isn't that selfish of God?  The priest answers all his questions in one word: love.  While there was still much that Pi did not understand about God and His Son, Pi could not forget about Him, and the more he thought about Him, the more he understood and loved Him.  Before his family was to go home, he ran to the church and told Father Martin "I would like to be a Christian, please." (Martel 56).  Pi was overjoyed when Father Martin answered that in his heart, Pi already was a Christian.

A year later, Pi was exploring his hometown and came upon a Muslim mosque.  He met a Sufi, a Muslim mystic, named Satish Kumar.  Mr. Kumar was teaching Pi to make bread when he suddenly started to pray.  He was fascinated by this sudden necessity for prayer.  He came back to visit Mr. Kumar several times with the desire to learn about Muslim religion.  This video explains Islamic religion and where the separation between Muslim and Islam lies (This video is long because it also goes into the political power of Islamic religion.  The first 7:42 is the part that explains the religion itself):

Characterization:

Yann Martel uses direct and indirect characterization in Life of Pi.  The book is always told from the 1st person point of view.  However, certain chapters are written from the author's point of view.

 When the book is told from the author's perspective, he directly characterizes Pi.  For example, in chapter 12 he says "At times he gets agitated. ... I worry that he'll want to stop.  But he wants to tell me his story" and "He's a sweet man." (Martel 42).  He directly characterizes Pi as a kind man with a difficult past that he has the courage to share with the world.

The majority of the book is written from Pi's perspective and much of what the reader understands about Pi's character is derived from the way he tells his story.  For example, when he says "The presence of God is the finest of rewards." we can derive that he is a devoutly religious man who honestly desires to do the right thing.

Works Cited:

Crash Course Hinduism.  Dir. John Green.  11 Sept. 2012.  Youtube.  Web.  3 Mar. 2015.

Islam, the Quran, and the Five Pillars.  Dir. John Green.  19 Apr. 2012.  Youtube.  Web.  3 Mar 2015.

Martel, Yann. Life of Pi. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. Print.

What is Christianity.  Dir. not available.  n.d. Christianity Explored.  Web.  3 Mar. 2015.