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LIFE OF PI

• Published in 2003 by Yann Martel

• Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Literature

• Developed into a major motion picture by Director Ang Lee

• Was nominated for several Oscars, including Best Picture

LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI

• A novel about a 16 year old boy

• Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi

• Novel starts out in India, where Pi’s family owns a zoo

• Pi has a deep interest in world religions, including Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity

• Family decides to leave India to move to Canada

• Board a ship called the Tsimtsum, which sinks in an unexplained accident

• Pi survives when he is thrown onto a lifeboat, where he remains for 228 days

LIFE OF PI

Pi soon realizes that he is not alone on the lifeboat. He shares it with:

A wounded zebra

LIFE OF PI

A hyena:

LIFE OF PI

An orangutan:

LIFE OF PI

And a 450 pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

LIFE OF PI

Does this sound weird to you?

Well, it should.

But, have an open mind. The story is deep and rich, and we will make many connections to Pi’s experience, regardless of whether or not we’ve ever been stranded out at sea.

LIFE OF PI

Ultimately, Pi’s is a story of survival, and the ways in which trauma changes and shapes us.

This is a lesson that we all learn in life, and Pi’s experience reveals unique ways that survival is possible.

The novel starts out with the words of an unidentified author (italics) who is encouraged to go and talk to Pi, who has a story “that will make you believe in God.”

The un-italicized, “I” voice in the novel represents Pi’s first person narration.

LIFE OF PI

Can you recall another survival story that you have encountered? Fiction or Nonfiction?

Think of how much of our entertainment focuses on this type of story:

LIFE OF PI

What is so alluring about this type of narrative? Why do you think we are so drawn to it?