Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel written by Yann Martel and published in 2001. The main character of the novel is Piscine Molitor Pi Patel, an Indian boy who has been exploring metaphysical and spiritual topics since childhood.
Summary Of The Life Of Pi
In the Life of Pi, an anonymous author figure explains that he traveled from his home in Canada to India because he felt restless. There, while drinking coffee at a café in the city of Pondicherry, he met an old man named Francis Adirubasamy, who offered to tell him a story so fantastic that it would strengthen his belief in God. This story is the story of Pi Patel. The author then transitions into the story, noting that it would feel more natural if narrated in Pi’s own voice.
Chapter One is narrated in the first person by Pi. He looks back on his life, from his older years to his high school and university days in Toronto, and even further back to his childhood in Pondicherry. He explains that he found solace in religion and zoology during times of great suffering. Pi reveals that Francis Adirubasamy, a close business associate of his father and a swimming champion, taught him how to swim and gave him his unusual name. Pi’s name comes from the Piscine Molitor, a swimming club in Paris frequently visited by Adirubasamy.
Pi’s father once managed the Pondicherry Zoo, and he taught Pi and his brother Ravi about the dangerous nature of animals by showing them a tiger eating a goat right before their eyes. Although Pi was raised as a Hindu, he discovered Christianity and then Islam, deciding to practice all three religions simultaneously. Affected by the political turmoil in India, Pi’s parents decided to move the family to Canada. On June 21, 1977, they set sail on a cargo ship, accompanied by a crew and numerous animal cages.
At the beginning of Chapter Two, the ship starts to sink. Pi clings to a lifeboat and encourages a tiger named Richard Parker to join him. Realizing the mistake of bringing a wild animal onto the boat, Pi jumps into the ocean. The narrative then flashes back to Pi describing the chaos of the sinking ship: crew members throw him into a lifeboat, where he finds himself alone with a zebra, an orangutan, and a hyena, all of which seem to be in shock.
His family is gone. As the storm subsides, Pi reflects on his dire situation. The hyena kills the zebra and the orangutan, and then Richard Parker, to Pi’s great surprise, reveals himself: the tiger had been hiding under the tarpaulin of the lifeboat all along. Soon after, the tiger kills the hyena, leaving Pi and Richard Parker alone at sea. Pi survives on canned water, filtered seawater, emergency rations, and freshly caught seafood. He also feeds and trains the tiger.
Days pass slowly, and the lifeboat’s occupants cautiously coexist. Due to temporary blindness, Pi encounters another blind survivor. They discuss food and lash their boats together. When the blind man attacks Pi intending to eat him, Richard Parker kills him. Eventually, the boat reaches a peculiar island where plants grow directly from the ground without roots. Pi and Richard Parker stay on the island for a while, sleeping in the boat by day and exploring the island.
Pi discovers a large colony of meerkats that sleep in the trees and live in freshwater ponds. One day, Pi finds human teeth inside a tree’s fruit and concludes that the island consumes people. He and Richard Parker return to the sea and eventually reach the coast of Mexico. Richard Parker escapes into the jungle, and villagers take Pi to a hospital.
In Chapter Three, two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport question Pi, hoping to learn about the fate of the sunken ship. Pi tells them the above story, but the skeptical men are not fully satisfied. So, Pi retells the story, this time replacing the animals with humans: an irate cook instead of the hyena, a sailor instead of the zebra, and his mother instead of the orangutan. The officials note that both stories match up and that the second one is much more plausible. In their final report, they commend Pi for having survived so long in the company of an adult tiger.