By: Yann Martel
A PowerPoint by Jake Wightman
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Yann Martel
Yann Martel was born in Salamanca, Spain.
He published Life of Pi in 2002
He was the winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for fiction
He studied philosophy at Trent University in Peterborough,
Ontario Canada.
• The story is set around the 1970’s
• It also takes place around the time India becomes communist
and is ruled by a dictator.
• Most of the story takes place on an orange life boat in the
middle of the South Pacific Ocean, which was very hot and very
dry since it was Summer.
• A secondary location that the story takes place in is in
Pondicherry India, a city in southeastern India.
• The overall mood of the story is hope.
• The part that says “Hope” to me is the times when Pi looks into
the horizon just hoping and longing for rescue.
• Pi is the protagonist because he is working to stay alive through
all of the obstacles that our antagonist, which we’ll get to next,
throws at him in the life boat.
• Pi is a very smart 17 year old boy who is very involved and
interested in religions.
• Pi in his childhood was a Hindu,
Muslim, and Christian at the same time.
• People think Pi is very very intelligent.
• The antagonist is Richard Parker the 300 pound Bengal tiger
that some how ended up in the life boat with Pi when the boat
sank.
• Richard Parker represents the variable between life and death
on the boat.
• Richard is a real tiger, but he wasn’t really there he was just an
idea that was going on in Pi’s head, Richard Parker was a
figment on Pi’s imagination representing his fear.
• The main conflict of the story was Pi trying to stay alive on the
life boat all alone with limited resources such as his dwindling
supply of food, exposure to the elements, and his hope for
rescue.
• The ultimate climax of the story was when Pi conquered Richard
Parker, the tiger, and showed him who is boss and to obey him.
• By doing so Pi conquered his fear of being all alone and was
not afraid to face his fears anymore.
• The resolution occurred when Pi finally hit landfall on the coast
of Mexico and was rescued.
• When Pi hit landfall after 200 something days he was
interviewed by two representatives from the shipping company
that owned the boat that sunk with Pi’s family was on and tried
to figure out Pi’s story.
• The theme in Life of Pi is Survival.
• It is Survival because Pi spent so many days surviving off of the
ocean and the rations in the boat. Not to mention his genius
work in making a raft out of floatable oars and Buoys.
• Pi also used a lot of things in the boat to make other useful
things like the anchor made out of the tarpaulin and the metal
rungs.
• He also found out the things he could eat in many kinds of fish.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yann_Martel
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
pictures courtesy of Google Images
Images collected from the movie Life Of Pi.
I myself thought Life Of Pi was an absolutely excellent story of
survival and courage. Another reason I thought Life Of Pi was a
great book was because of the descriptive details Yann Martel
used when he wrote the book. Yann Martel also went into deep
discussions about religions in which he described every one he
talked about in a positive way and then a negative way based on
his opinion of the religion. He also spoke a lot about the little
things going on during major events in the story. That is why I
thought Life Of Pi was an absolutely tremendous book.