1. Life of Pi Notes and Background Information

2. Yann Martel Born in 1963 to Canadian parents while living in Spain
Writing career took off with Life of Pi
Won the Mann Booker prize awarded for best English-language novel written by a Commonwealth or Irish author
Translated into thirty languages
Screen rights purchased by Fox

3. Setting

4. Information about Pondicherry
India was a British colony for nearly 200 years.
However, Pondicherry was once the capital of French India and so it retains its French culture.

5. Places in Pondicherry Place de la Republic Pondicherry Seafront
Aurobindo Ashram

6. Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi)
The protagonist of the story.
He gets his unusual name from the French word for pool—and, more specifically, from a pool in Paris in which a close family friend, Francis Adirubasamy, loved to swim.
A student of zoology and religion, Pi is quite interested and intrigued by the habits and characteristics of animals and people.

7. The Author of the Story
The author, who is not Pi, tells the story as if he is Pi. He inserts himself into the narrative at several points throughout the text. (Watch for italic print.)
First person (peripheral) and first person (central narrator)
Most believe this author to be Martel himself but this is a common move when authors don’t want to be brought in the story in anyway.

8. Francis Adirubasamy
Elderly man who tells the author Pi’s story during a chance meeting at a Pondicherry coffee shop.
He taught Pi, as a child, to swim and gave him his unusual name.
He arranges for the author to meet Pi in person, to get a first-hand account of his strange and compelling tale.
Pi calls Adirubasamy Mamaji, an Indian term meaning respected uncle.

9. Pi’s Family Santosh Patel Gita Patel
Ravi
popular older brother, who prefers sports to schoolwork.
He teases Pi about his devotion to three different religions.
Santosh Patel
Pi’s father, who runs the Pondicherry Zoo.
He worries continuously and teaches his sons to fear animals.
Why does he want to move the zoo in the first place?
Gita Patel
Pi’s beloved mother and protector.
She loves books and encourages Pi to read widely.

10. Influential Chracters
Satish Kumar (#1)
Pi’s atheist biology teacher at Petit Seminaire, a secondary school in Pondicherry.
Inspires Pi to study zoology in college.
Father Martin
Inspires Christianity pursuit
Satish Kumar (#2)
Inspires Islam pursuit and the study of religion in college
Hindu Pandit
Inspires Hindu pursuit

11. Concepts The Will to Live
The Importance of Storytelling and Religious Belief

12. The Will to Live
Life of Pi is a story about struggling to survive through seemingly insurmountable odds
As Martel makes clear in his novel, living creatures will often do extraordinary, unexpected, and sometimes crazy things to survive
heroic things
shameful and barbaric things

13. The Importance of Storytelling and Religious belief
PiFrancisAuthorPi
Stories and religious beliefs are linked in Life of Pi because Pi asserts that both require faith on the part of the listener or devotee
“I have a story that will make you believe in God.”
Every religion is made up of stories, fables and tales that require faith in order to believe.

14. Narrative Structure 100 chapters (some many pages, some a few words)
After the Author’s Note, Life of Pi is written in three sections
Part 1: Ch. 1-36
Gives childhood synopsis and tells story of how author came to meet Pi
Part 2: Ch
the 227-day journey across the ocean to North America
Part 3: Ch
his experience with the reporters once on land
These formal elements help to define the different aspects of Pi’s character development