Questions and Answers for Life of Pi
Life of Pi
What is the exposition, climax, and resolution in "Life of Pi?"
Exposition refers to the beginning of a story, where the author establishes a setting, introduces the characters, and provides a foundation for all of the coming action and conflict. We get to...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, what is the significance of the tiger's name?
I thought it might be interesting to expand a bit upon the "clerical error" mentioned above. There is an interesting bit of irony involved, for sure. The tiger's name should have been "Thirsty."...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, what is the significance of Pi's unusual name?
The significance of Pi's name is that he chose it for himself. Pi felt a desire to change his name due to the teasing and torment brought on by the phonetic sound of his birth name, Piscine Molitor...
Life of Pi
Important Events In Life Of Pi
Let us look at the “significant events” of Life of Pi in terms of its plot elements. The exposition introduces the characters and the setting. It is most often found at the beginning. Therefore,...
Life of Pi
What are some metaphors from Life of Pi?
Yann Martel's Life of Pi is chock full of metaphors, so I will focus on religious and animal metaphors in this post. Religious Metaphors: 1. "In a second everyone was laughing. It fell away as we...
Life of Pi
How does Pi survive mentally?
Pi survives mentally after seven months at sea on a lifeboat by keeping his mind busy with the following: completing daily tasks, such as reading, fishing and writing a diary; taming Richard...
Life of Pi
I know that Life of Pi is based on true events. However, how much of the novel is fact and how much is fiction? The...
The answer to this question isn't likely possible to know without having the author create some kind of list or explanation that tells readers what parts are real, what parts are based on reality,...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, how does Richard Parker ensure that Pi survives his ordeal at sea? I would like at least four reason...
Richard Parker, the adult Bengal tiger who ended up in the lifeboat with Pi, helped keep Pi Patel alive in many ways in Yann Martel's novel Life Of Pi. One way Richard Parker contributed to Pi's...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, what 3 religions does Pi follow and why?
Pi grows up as a Hindu and loves the trappings of the religion. His mother took him to a temple in Madurai. He says that the color, sound, and mystery of the temple stayed with him and made him...
Life of Pi
How does Pi change throught the novel The Life of Pi?
Pi uses the structure of religious ritual and scientific study in order to survive. This is part of his maturity. But, he also had to compromise some of his values by eating human flesh and...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, how does Pi's faith contribute to his survival?
Since Pi practices faith in three major religions, he draws upon all of them to pull him through his suffering on the lifeboat. Not only does his commitment to three different religions show that...
Life of Pi
What is the climax of the Life of Pi?
Tough question. Normally the climax of a book is super easy to nail down. That's not the case with Yann Martel's Life of Pi. I've actually read one analysis that listed the ship's sinking as the...
Life of Pi
What happened to Pi’s family after the storm?
Pi's mother and father both die in the sinking of the Tsimtsum, the Japanese freighter vessel meant to transport the animals to North America. It is important to note that Pi's mother is part of...
Life of Pi
What quotes from Life of Pi show the lesson Pi's father gives his sons?
Chapter 8 is when Pi's father gives him a lesson that he never forgets. Against his mother's wishes, Pi's father takes the whole family down to Mahisha's (the Bengal tiger) enclosure where a goat...
Life of Pi
What does Richard Parker symbolise in Life if Pi? I understand that it could be argued that he represents Pi,...
If you go with the non-animal version of the ending, he represents a world in which doing whatever is necessary for survival is not only okay, it is expected and normal. If the tiger does indeed...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, how does the author use imagery? Why does the author use imagery?
Throughout Life of Pi, author Yann Martel relies heavily on imagery to bolster a realistic atmosphere within a fantastic setting and highly improbable narrative. The detailed imagery supports the...
Life of Pi
In what ways does Pi describe man as the most dangerous animal in the zoo?
On this subject, though Pi notes that “In a general way we mean how our species’ excessive predatoriness has made the entire planet our prey,” what he is really talking about it the ignorant...
Life of Pi
Why are there 100 chapters in Life of Pi?
I wonder--could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? The number one hundred is a very "ordered" number. Ending with the very even and very...
Life of Pi
Besides the loss of his family and possessions, what else did Pi lose when the Tsimtsum sank? What did he gain?
When the Tsimtsum--the Japanese freighter that was intended to transport the Patels' animals to their new zoo in North America--sinks in the horrific storm, Pi Patel must cope with more than the...
Life of Pi
In "Life of Pi" why does Pi describe the sloth as a "beautiful example of the miracle of life?"
Pi describes the sloth as a beautiful example of the miracle of life because of the animal’s nature and characteristics. Pi got a chance to study the sloth in its natural habitat in the equatorial...
Life of Pi
In Yann Martel's Life of Pi, how do each of the animals on the lifeboat represent a different part of Pi's...
This is a very interesting question—it can be rephrased as, how do each of the animals function as metaphors for Pi's personality? On the lifeboat, the hyena is aggressive and violent, killing both...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, Martel's statement, "Memory is an ocean and he bobs on its surface" (ch. 12, p 46), is a metaphor....
The quote you have highlighted is a perfect example of a metaphor, as it compares the memory of Pi to an ocean where he is bobbing up and down on it. Of course, when we read the entire book, we can...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, chapter 36, what do you think is the significance of the author's statement, "This story has a happy...
By telling the reader that the story has a happy ending, it relieves some of the tension that the reader is feeling and will feel throughout the book. The book is very tense throughout the second...
Life of Pi
"To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." pg 28 Does...
Yes, you are correct in your surmise about the meaning of the quote! It is saying that doubt paralyzes us. If we are constantly plagued with doubt, we will never make a mistake, but we will never...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi how does Pi's knowledge of zoos make him resourceful enough to survive at sea?
Pi's knowledge of zoos and zookeeping uniquely equipped him to survive his ocean voyage with a 450-pound Bengal tiger. He had a healthy fear of the tiger, he established his territory as an animal...
Life of Pi
Yann Martel says, "This book was born as I was hungry." What sort of emotional nourishment might "Life of Pi" have...
In Yann Martel's novel Life of Pi, there is, at the beginning of the novel, an author's note. It is here that Martel says, "This book was born as I was hungry." He goes on to describe the debut of...
Life of Pi
What is a good passage analysis for Life of Pi?
This question is wide open for various answers from various readers. Different readers are going to gravitate toward different passages for analysis. Additionally, the analysis could go a variety...
Life of Pi
Where did Pi get his given name?
Pi is born Piscine Molitor Patel. Pi received his given name as homage to a family friend, Francis Adirubasamy. Pi renamed himself to escape ongoing jokes about his name. Rather than be called...
Life of Pi
What does this quote from Life of Pi mean, and can it be related to everyday life? "Life is so beautiful that death...
The answer here is subjective, and various readers are going to have their own thoughts on it; however, it is important to look at Pi's entire statement regarding death and love because the second...
Life of Pi
Follow the relationship between Pi and Richard Parker. They endure over two hundred days of hardship together, but in...
When Pi and Richard Parker are at the beginning of their journey, after Pi's family is killed in the shipwreck, Pi fears Richard Parker, but he is forced to find a way to co-exist with him in order...
Life of Pi
What does the orangutan symbolize in Life of Pi? What do orangutan symbolize in other cultures that connect to the...
Pi tells two versions of his ship sinking and time on the life boat. One story is quite logical in its telling and does not include any animals. The other story is a tale of epic proportions...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, describe how and why Piscine Molitor Patel becomes Pi.
Pi Patel, the narrator and main character in Life of Pi, received the name Piscine Molitor from his father, who named him after a swimming pool in Paris, France. Unfortunately, since the name was...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, where can examples of dramatic, verbal, and situational irony be found?
Irony is when the opposite of what is expected happens. Verbal irony can be found in chapter 50 when Pi discusses the size of the lifeboat and how it should be able to accommodate thirty-two...
Life of Pi
Life of Pi explains how religions and zoos are both steeped in illusion. What are other ways in which these two...
The previous answer was pretty disparaging of religion, but one does not need to be. When one begins to compare zoos with religion, there are many things one can see in terms of similarities. Let...
Life of Pi
How are chapters 21 and 22 the core of the Martel's novel Life of Pi?
Chapters 21 and 22 of Yann Martel's novel The Life of Pi are at the core of the novel because they grapple with and seek to answer the core theme, which is the existence or absence of God. In his...
Life of Pi
In "Life of Pi", why does Pi dislike agnostics more than atheists?
Pi is an incredibly wise character, and reading about his life and religion philosophies is a highlight of the book for many readers. It is always interesting to read about how Pi personally mixed...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, why are there thousands of meerkats on the floating carnivorous island?
Pi led an interesting life since childhood. At one point he simultaneously observed three religions (Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam). Unfortunately, he lost both his parents and his brother in a...
Life of Pi
In Martel's Life of Pi, how do Mr. Patel's zoo keeping abilities compare to his parenting skills? Does the goat and...
Mr. Patel seems to merge his knowledge of animals and running zoos with his ideas of parenting in Martel's Life of Pi. Mr. Patel draws parallels from the animal kingdom to the human world while...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, how did the Hyena die?
The answer to this question can be found in Chapter 53, when Pi tires to launch his raft so that he can escape the boat and the increasingly perilous situation that exists with being trapped on a...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, Pi suggests that “When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable...
The quotation "When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling" appears at the beginning of Life of Pi. In making this remark, Pi is revealing that...
Life of Pi
What is the significance of Pi's unusual name in Life of Pi?
When Pi begins being teased about his full name, Piscine, and mockingly nicknamed "Pissing Patel," he decides to take matters into his own hands. When he begins as a student at a new school, he...
Life of Pi
What are some examples of internal and external conflict in the book Life of Pi by Yan Martel?
At the time of this story, Pi is a middle-aged man living in Canada, retelling the story of his life growing up in India and the dramatic trip he took across the Pacific Ocean. The story focuses on...
Life of Pi
In chapter 15 of Life of Pi, the narrator describes "the man's house." What are the items in "the man's house"?
The items in "the man's house" can be summed up in the first five words of the chapter: "His house is a temple." Everything in this house is conducive of accouterments found in a temple area....
Life of Pi
What is a significant quote from Part One of Life of Pi? How does it relate to the real world, and what's the story...
Chapter 8 in Martel's Life of Pi has two critical sentences that are meaningful to the real world as well as to the story. The first sentence in the chapter is as follows: "We commonly say in the...
Life of Pi
In "Life of Pi" how does Pi's father unknowingly prepare him for the ordeal in the lifeboat?
Pi's father, as the owner and manager of a zoo, taught Pi many lessons about the nature of animals. and about human interactions with him. The most memorable is when he leads Pi to the tiger cage...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, how does Pi combine and use religion and science to survive on the lifeboat?
I'll start with a broad overview of Pi and his knowledge of science and religion. First, Pi's knowledge and usage of religion is quite broad and tolerant. That's why he is able to combine...
Life of Pi
How Do The Human Beings In Your World Reflect The Animal Behavior Observed By Pi
Richard Parker's ferocity in life equals Pi's resolve to find land; therefore, the two together fight to survive almost a year at sea alone on a lifeboat. Richard Parker not only represents Pi's...
Life of Pi
Carnivorous Island
Although the floating carnivorous island in the Life of Pi is fictitious, there are ecosystems on this earth that are changing so drastically that many carnivorous animals are finding themselves...
Life of Pi
In Life of Pi, why does Pi feel that atheists have faith?
To Pi Patel, an atheist has faith because the atheist either believes that there is no God or he believes that there is no need for a god. Atheists believe that science and reason are the ways to...
Life of Pi
What are some ethical dilemmas in Life of Pi, and how do they impact society?
The major question one might ask after reading Life of Pi might be the following: What is humanly appropriate when faced with surviving a traumatic and life-threatening experience? Decent and...
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