About

Life of Pi was written by Yann Martel. The main character of the story is Piscine Molitor Patel, or “Pi” for short. Pi is and Indian boy who is from a town called Pondicherry. On the first part of the book, Pi talks about his past and his memories back in Pondicherry. He is very much interested in zoology and religion. He also met one of his father’s associate, Francis Adirubasamy. He called him “Mamaji.” Mamaji tried to teach Pi’s parents how to swim, but they did not succeed. Pi shows interest in learning how to swim, therefore, Mamaji taught him. Pi and his family moved to Canada later on. During their trip, the cargo ship began to sink. Pi manages to get to a lifeboat safely. Then, a tiger was swimming towards him. His company was the tiger- Richard parker, an orangutan- Orange Juice, a zebra, and a hyena. After days, the rest of the animals were gone except Richard. Richard ate all the animals. They find a blind man who was also stranded in his lifeboat. He intended to kill him, but Richard was there to protect him. Richard ate the blind man. Pi collects the food from the blind man’s life boat. They struggle for survival and their life on a boat lasts for seven months. In part three, Pi gets interviewed about his time at the sea. He has different explanations because the Japanese interviewers did not believe Pi’s story. He replaced the animals with human characters to make it sound very realistic and true.