Literal Plot

Pi was born
06/25/1963

He was named after a glorious swimming pool in Paris called the Pisine Molitor. (Pi was born)

Pi learned to swim
1970

He was seven years old, and his family friend, mamaji, gave him his first swimming lesson in the ocean. (Pi's learned to
swim)

Religion
1976

Pi was originally Hindu, but he stumbled upon a cathedral, and decided to be a Christain as well. Soon, he walked into a
mosque, and added Islam to his accumulation of religions he followed. Once the head of the different churches found out,
they wanted him to chose just one (or in other words, their own belief), and gave him much pain about it. In turn, Pi just
went to different places to worship. (Religion)

Shipwreck
07/02/1977

He heard a noise in the night, and went on deck only to find a storm. When he was going back to his cabin with Ravi, he
noticed there was water on the floor. Then he went back on deck and was thrown aboard a lifeboat. 16 years old.
(Shipwreck)

Killed his first fish

07/09/1977

Killed flying fish (broke neck)- Pi is very sad. Soon after he killed the dorado (beat with axe hilt)- ecstatic and proud."...a
person can get used to anything, even killing" (Matel, 185)

Stopped looking for ships

08/17/1977

Stopped looking for a rescuer almost entirely (Martel, 191) Soon after expending all of his flares (that happen to smell
like Cumin), he sees the very high improbability of being rescued by a ship. (Martel, 199) (Stopped looking for ships)

No more raft
09/20/1977

During a brutal storm in which Pi got under the tarpaulin with Richard, the raft broke free and the lifeboat became slightly
marred.
Pi trains Richard Parker
09/30/1977

Pi wants to be able to get on the lifeboat more often, so he starts to assert his dominance by blowing a whistle loudly
while rocking the boat and making him feel seasick. He finally is able to gain complete dominance over him during a
stare-down over a dorado fish.

Mortality
10/02/1977

Pi is reminded that Richard Parker isn't as all-powerful as he appears to be. He gets attacked by a Maco shark that Pi
throws aboard unthinkingly.

The Oiltanker
10/10/1977

Pi and Richard finally encounter a ship they think is close enough to see and rescue them. Pi becomes absolutely
distraught when they very nearly get run over and the flare he set off ricocheted off the ship into the water. It is here Pi
declares his love and gratification to Richard Parker.

Pi and R.P. go blind

10/25/1977

Richard Parker is the first to go blind, then Pi finds that a black dot grows in his vision until he too is unable to see. They
are both in very bad physical condition (skin and bones) 241

The Frenchman
10/27/1977

Pi is weak, and when he hears a voice, he decides to talk to it. At first they talk about food. Then Pi thinks it is Richard
Parker that is talking to him. So, he asks him some questions, and in turn finds out he killed a man and a woman. When he
hears the French accent, he realizes it is a person. The man boards Pi's lifeboat, and tries to kill him. R.P. ends up killing
the Frenchman.

Returning Vision
10/29/1977

Pi gains his vision back as he continues to rinse it with seawater.

Algae Island
12/14/1977

Pi and R.P. come across the algae island (p 257).

The Fruit
01/05/1978

Pi encountered a tree with some fruit. So, he climbs this tree and sees how interesting it is. It has several stems, and as he
picks it up it is very light. Before this, he had never even imagined going back onto the lifeboat. It was not in fact fruit, but
human teeth covered in leaves. There were 32 "fruit", and entire human set. Not only this, but a searing pain shot up into
his feet as he stepped onto the algae at night.The island was carnivorous (p 280).
Pi and R.P. leave the island
01/06/1978

They leave the island together, and take some algea on a rope behind the boat, and as much food as will fit in the
lifeboat.Grief, ache, and endurance is all that follows on his trip. So he turns to God.

Journey on the sea ends

02/14/1978

As they landed on the beach, Richard Parker left the boat and went straight into the forest. Pi never got a chance to say
goodbye. He was found some hours later by some people. Pi survived at sea for 227 days.

Benito Juarez Infermary, Tomatlan, Mexico

02/19/1978

Pi is visited by by two men ( Mr. Okamoto, and Mr. Chiba ), and is asked to tell his story. They don't believe that bananas
float, or in the carnivorous island. They also are uncertain about the truth behind the tiger."Don't bully me with your
politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any
believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?" Pi Patel ( Martel, 297)" I know what you want. You want a story
that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or
differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality." (p 302).

"Dry, Yeastless Factuality" -Pi Patel

02/19/1978

Pi decides to tell them a different story. This one, however, replaces the animals with actual people.After the ship sunk, he
fell into the water, and was pulled aboard with a life bouey that the French cook from the ship threw out to him. There was
already a Chinese sailor, who had broken his femur jumping onto the lifeboat. They found Pi's mom floating on a pile of
bananas.The Frenchman was a vulgar man that wanted to cut off the sailor's leg to use for bait. The sailor's wound caused
him sever pain that took him a very long time to die from. After he died, the Frenchman mutilated, and cured his flesh so
that he could not only use it as bait, but eat it as well.The horrified mother slapped him. The horrid man also helped them
get food and maneuver the ship. One day, he kills Pi's mother and throws her head at Pi. Pi and the man get in a fight, and
Pi stabs him to death.

Life of Pi is a Canadian fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist is Piscine Molitor
"Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry who explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He
survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard
Parker.
Part one[edit]
In the first section, the main character, by the name of Piscine Patel, an adult Canadian, reminisces about his childhood
in India. His father owns a zoo in Pondicherry. The livelihood provides the family with a relatively affluent lifestyle and
some understanding of animal psychology.
The narrator describes how he acquired his full name, Piscine Molitor Patel, as a tribute to the swimming pool in France.
After hearing schoolmates tease him by transforming the first name into "Pissing", he establishes the short form of his
name as "Pi" when he starts secondary school. The name, he says, pays tribute to the irrational number which is the ratio
of the circumference of a circle to its diameter.
In recounting his experiences, Pi describes several other unusual situations involving proper names: two visitors to the
zoo, one a devout Muslim, and the other a committed atheist, bear identical names; and a 450-pound tiger at the zoo bears
the name Richard Parker as the result of a clerical error, in which human and animal names were reversed. [9]
Pi is raised as a Hindu who practices vegetarianism. At the age of fourteen, he investigates Christianity and Islam, and
decides to become an adherent of all three religions, much to his parents' dismay, saying he "just wants to love God." [10]
[11]
He tries to understand God through the lens of each religion, and comes to recognize benefits in each one.
A few years later in February 1976, during the period when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declares "The
Emergency", Pi's father decides to sell the zoo and immigrate with his wife and sons to Canada.
Part two[edit]
The second part of the novel begins with Pi's family aboard the Tsimtsum, a Japanese freighter that is transporting animals
from their zoo to North America. A few days out of port from Manila, the ship encounters a storm and sinks. Pi manages
to escape in a small lifeboat, only to learn that the boat also holds a spotted hyena, an injured Grant's zebra, and
an orangutan named Orange Juice. Much to the boy's distress, the hyena kills the zebra and then Orange Juice. A tiger has
been hiding under the boat's tarpaulin: it's Richard Parker, who had boarded the lifeboat with ambivalent assistance from
Pi himself some time before the hyena attack. Suddenly emerging from his hideaway, Richard Parker kills and eats the
hyena.
Frightened, Pi constructs a small raft out of rescue flotation devices, tethers it to the bow of the boat and makes it his place
of retirement. He begins conditioning Richard Parker to take a submissive role by using food as a positive reinforcer, and
seasickness as a punishment mechanism, while using a whistle for signals. Soon, Pi asserts himself as the alpha animal,
and is eventually able to share the boat with his feline companion, admitting in the end that Richard Parker is the one who
helped him survive his ordeal.
Pi recounts various events while adrift in the Pacific Ocean. At his lowest point, exposure renders him blind and unable to
catch fish. In a state of delirium, he talks with a marine "echo", which he initially identifies as Richard Parker having
gained the ability to speak, but it turns out to be another blind castaway, a Frenchman, who boards the lifeboat with the
intention of killing and eating Pi, but is eventually killed by Richard Parker.
Some time later, Pi's boat comes ashore on a floating island network of algae and inhabited by hundreds of thousands
of meerkats. Soon, Pi and Richard Parker regain strength, but the boy's discovery of the carnivorous nature of the island's
plant life forces him to return to the ocean.
Two hundred and twenty-seven days after the ship's sinking, the lifeboat washes onto a beach in Mexico, after which
Richard Parker disappears into the nearby jungle without looking back, leaving Pi heartbroken at the abrupt farewell.
Part three[edit]
The third part of the novel describes a conversation between Pi and two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport,
who are conducting an inquiry into the shipwreck. They meet him at the hospital in Mexico where he is recovering. Pi
tells them his tale, but the officials reject it as unbelievable. Pi then offers them a second story in which he is adrift on a
lifeboat not with zoo animals, but with the ship's cook, a Taiwanese sailor with a broken leg, and his own mother. The
cook amputates the sailor's leg for use as fishing bait, then kills the sailor himself as well as Pi's mother for food, and soon
he is killed by Pi, who dines on him.
The investigators note parallels between the two stories. They soon conclude that the hyena symbolizes the cook, the
zebra the sailor, the orangutan Pi's mother, and the tiger represents Pi. Pi points out that neither story can be proven and
neither explains the cause of the shipwreck, so he asks the officials which story they prefer: the one without animals or the
one with animals. They eventually choose the story with the animals. Pi thanks them and says: "And so it goes with God."
The investigators then leave and file a report.
Life is a story[edit]
Life of Pi, according to Yann Martel, can be summarized in three statements: "Life is a story... You can choose your story...
A story with God is the better story." [12] A recurring theme throughout the novel seems to be believability. Pi at the end of
the book asks the two investigators "If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for?" [13]According to Gordon
Houser there are two main themes of the book: "that all life is interdependent, and that we live and breathe via belief." [14]