Double Bubble Map of Characters

Bubble map of Pi

Theme Multi Flow map of survival- Meghan

Art

Though art is never directly mentioned or incorporated into a theme of this novel the style in which Pi and the author describe the settings make one create detailed images.

“The ship sank. It made a sound like a monstrous metallic burp. Things bubbled at the surface and then vanished. Everything was screaming: the sea, the wind, my heart. From the lifeboat I saw something in the water” (Martel 97).

With in depth descriptions like this Martel is able to create vivid images of Pi’s ordeal at sea. Whether it is his description of the boat sinking or Pi’s interaction with the wildlife in and out of the water. As see in the picture above the images one would imagine when reading this book could easily be turned into a painting or expressed in a variety of art mediums.

Poetry In Life of Pi

Though the poetry in never directly mentioned in Life of Pi, many similarities can be drawn between the way in which Pi depicts his 227 ordeal on the life raft with that of an epic poem. In the first version of Pi's adventure at sea, which accounts for a majority of the book, Pi creates an alternate reality in which he replaces humans with animals that exhibit the same characteristics as those who actually were present on the raft.
The animals that Pi supposedly is trapped on the life raft with include a zebra, hyena, an orangutan, and a full grown tiger. These animals however are not present and instead are metaphors for people that were on the raft. The zebra represents a sailor who breaks his leg falling to the life boat, and like the zebra he ends up dying. The orangutan represents Pi’s mother who like the zebra ends up dying at the hands of the hyena. The hyena is a metaphor for the brutal psychotic cook that takes refuge on the raft. He is responsible for the deaths of the sailor, who he intends to use as food, and Pi’s mother, who gets in his way. Pi is the tiger in his story yet speaks as if they are separate. It is he who kills the cook and the tiger who kills the hyena.

Music -Meghan

You've Got a friend in me


The song that our group chose to represent "Life of Pi" is the song You've got a friend in me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB2gPZRsz0Q

This song reminds people that when they are going through a hard time a friend can be the person to help them through the hardships. In the " Life of Pi" Pi is stranded on the life boat for 227 days. Since he is stranded with many animals he knows that he has to find a companion to keep him up in high hopes until he reaches home. That friend is Richard Parker. Richard Parker is the only animal on the life boat that in end is a good friend to Pi because he fights off the the hynea who was going to kill Pi for food. This is a turning point in their friendship and from there on Pi looks at the journey as either they both survive or they both die together.

* Pi is also very religious and as many of us have experiences music is a key factor in each of our different religions we practice. 

-Hinduism, Islam and Christianity

This is a hindu song that Pi could have listened to. It is very different from our culture but it was interesting to read a novel where the main character experimented with three different religions 

Themes- Meghan

SURVIVAL


* There are many underlying themes in the "Life of Pi" while others are more obvious. The most important theme I believe has to with survival and how a person must want/ need the will to survive. The novel plays out to have a very negative plot - when Pi's family dies and he is stranded on life boat for 227 days, this to many people would seem to be the end of life but not for Pi. Pi and Richard Parker actively fight together against their doomed fate of death and in the end are able to survive. - Pi was a vegetarian and he must now eat fish to survive.

Animals on the life boat try to fight off each other till their very last breath and Martel shows this by talking in depth about their terrible, sad deaths.
- What one must do in order to survive

-What seems to be acceptable in the case of life vs. death in order to survive in the dangerous world.

**Another theme that goes away from Religion, music , poetry and and philosphy is that humans are not better than animals.
- animals in the zoo are as "free" as the animals in the wild.
-terrioty it calls home- animals that escape the zoo stay near

Setting

While Pi is growing up, he lives in the Pondicherry Zoo in his hometown, Pondicherry (part of being the son of a zookeeper). Pi develops a great interest in the animals in the zoo, specifically the three-toed sloth (the introduction of the novel is recalling Pi's knowledge of the three-toed sloth). The Pondicherry zoo is old and has many lowly animals; birds with their feathers plucked, a man who tried to steal a cobra, and many placid animals that have had rocks thrown at them.

Pondicherry Zoo
Pi learned to love animals
The first home of Pi

Full of animals
Featherless birds and old ruins
Nothing special here


After the tsimtsum sank, Pi spent sometime on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Survival was tough; drinking the sea water, stuck with wild animals, and the hyena who killed the zebra and orangutan. The lifeboat really serves as an important test for Pi, physically and mentally, to test the importance of companionship. The lifeboat was the most important setting that began two things; Pi's adventure on the island and later to Mexico, and Pi's friendship with Richard Parker.



Lifeboat on the sea
Pi is stuck with animals
Danger lurks ahead

Stuck at sea alone
There is nothing to do or eat
What will happen next



After Pi washes up onto Mexico, Richard Parker runs away. The abrupt departure leaves Pi depressed and longing for a more meaningful way for the road to split for Pi and Richard Parker. While in Mexico, Pi is interrogated by two japanese officials. Pi tries to tell the story in complete detail and everything that had happened, but the japanese officials don't believe the story with the incorporation of animals instead of actual people. The journey is at an end for Pi and Richard Parker.

Richard runs away
Pi is interrogated
Pi tells his story

On Mexico shore
The journey is over for Pi
Still without parents

About the Author

Yann Martel was born in 1963. He grew up in Spain but traveled and lived in all different parts of the world: Costa Rica, France, and Mexico. Yann attended Trent University and recieved a dregree in philosophy. At the age of 27 he decided that he wanted to become a writer and he ended up publishing his first book in 1993. When he was older he traveled to different parts of the world: Canada and India were two of the many. (Similar to the book because Pi originally lived in India but then his family decided to move to Canada with some of their zoo animals.) Also, Yann visited many zoos while in India which is also relevent to the book, Life of Pi. He is still living today and is in the process of writing a new book.




-->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_Martel
-->http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth03A14L010512634824

The Role of science, religion, and philosophy

Religion:

-Cosmogomy Theory of Isaac Luria (Kabbalist from Safed)
-->"My Fourth-year thesis for religious studies concerned certain aspects of the cosmogomy theory of Isaac Luria" (3)
* Theory explains how God carried light in five vessels ( Similar to the lifeboat that carried five animals: the hyena, orangutan, zebra, tiger, and Pi.)
* Pi creates what happen on the lifeboat between him and the animals.

- Pi is a religious Hindu while growing up but also practices Muslim and Christianity.

-Prays to God all the time on the lifeboat and continues to do religious rituals.


Philosophys:

-Permit doubt
"If Christ played with doubt, so must we". (28)


Science:

-Understanding animals and their actions.
"Getting animals used to the presence of humans is at the heart of the art and science of zookeeping"(39).

-Survival methods while on the lifeboat: How to get fresh water (Solar stills device that transforms water), uses a shoe to catch bait, reads the maunaul book and was trying to navigate, observes the sea life and finds creative ways to catch turtles and different kinds of fish.

-->http://www.kheper.net/essays/Tikkun_and_Big_Bang_Theory.html
-->http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lifeofpi/section2.rhtml

Summary

In Life of Pi, Pi, a young boy from India, endures many hardships while on a lifeboat with a bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Pi and Richard Parker survived a Japanese Cargo ship, called the Tsimtsum, sinking and ended up together on a lifeboat in the open sea. Pi was originally headed to America with his family. Richard Parker was one of the animals that was in the Pondicherry Zoo that Pi's father was the zookeeper of. Pi is a unique boy, practicing Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam simultaneously and equally. Pi and Richard Parker must work together in order to a survive the treacheries that life and nature can throw at them while in a lifeboat.

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