Narrative Techniques In Life Of Pi

Being narrated by an older version of the main character, Life of Pi is a story about a man named Pi Patel. Most of the beginning of the novel includes all the history of his life; it introduces topics such as his major, the definition of his name, and his family. His majors are religion and Zoology, which comes back later in the book. It also gives the reader the interesting background of the meaning of his name, based off of a swimming pool. These larger topics and more were shared with the readers. A prominent part of all of this is the fact that it almost always comes back to animals.

Yann Martel`s Life of Pi follows A journey of a young man and a Bengal tiger as they travel across the ocean in a lifeboat.Director Ang lee made many consider the book to be beautiful,but virually unflimable.Being needed to told on screen Ang lee discerned very adeptly,about Life of Pi ‘’if there is will there is a way’’.

Karanvir Dhami Ms. Yu ENG3U March 7, 2011 Symbolism in Life of Pi In Life of Pi there are many literary devices used to present the different themes in the novel. The main literary device used in Life of Pi is symbolism. Symbolism is often used to represent an object to something else, either by association or by resemblance. Most of the names of animals, objects and even humans in this novel have a symbolic meaning. In Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, symbolism such as pi’s name, the colour orange and the algae island, are used throughout the novel to provide Pi with protection to help him either survive or overcome his emotional pain. The mathematical pi is undefined, infinite and unable to be understood, just like Piscine Patel.

Being an epitome of The Hero’s Journey, Life of Pi displays the first stage, the Call to Adventure, when the Tsimtsum (ship) sinks and Pi is ultimately left with only a Bengal Tiger and his wits to survive. Due to the rich and diverse experiences he had with his family and friends, he is well prepared to take this journey.

As Pi has to fight through adversity when he is stranded in a the middle of the Pacific Ocean, he has to adjust his eating habits. When one is in a situation where there is not much to eat, any little thing must be consumed. As a very famous proverb says, “Beggars can’t be choosers.” This was Pi’s most difficult challenge when he was on the boat. As a child, Pi grew up to be a vegetarian. The idea of killing and then consuming an animal really freaked out Pi. He remembered from his childhood, “To think that when I was a child I always shuddered when I snapped open a banana because it sounded to me like the breaking of an animal's neck” (197). Even when Pi was eating something like a banana that is not related at all to an animal, he

1. Reason One of the most enjoyable aspects of the novel was the way Pi presents his point of view in his telling of the story. In the earlier stages of the book Pi tells us of his discovery of religion which he turns to for hope later on when the cargo ship him and his family travel on sinks, leaving him orphaned and lost. Throughout the novel he retells the story of his survival with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker and the situation of their survival.

In the story Life of Pi, Pi Patel says, “Doesn’t the telling of something always become a story?” In my opinion, yes I think that if you tell someone something, it can have a chance to become a story. This is based on the facts that the definition of a story taken from google, “an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment” (google 1). Here, it tells us that anything you a person can say is a story because we are real people, and because of that anything we say can be made into a story. In this book, this quote could contribute to the survival theme or storying telling theme. This is based on the fact that Pi could have made up this story to help him deal with the problems he accounted on his journey, which contributes

On its surface, Martel’s Life of Pi proceeds as a far-fetched yet not completely unbelievable tale about a young Indian boy named Pi who survives after two hundred twenty-seven days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It is an uplifting and entertaining story, with a few themes about companionship and survival sprinkled throughout. The ending, however, reveals a second story – a more realistic and dark account replacing the animals from the beginning with crude human counterparts. Suddenly, Life of Pi becomes more than an inspiring tale and transforms into a point to be made about rationality, faith, and how storytelling correlates the two. The point of the book is not for the reader to decide which

When writing, authors need to think of their audience and involve an element of surprise. Authors use plot twists in their writing to help them accomplish surprising the audience, allowing them to keep their audience’s interest. Not only do plot twists help keep the audience’s attention, they also make the audience question their beliefs about what they think of the story. Authors can use this tool to advance their themes. Yann Martel uses a crazy plot twist in his book, the Life of Pi, to suggest to readers that truth is relative.

A) Piscine is a 16 year old boy who got stranded on a life boat after a cargo ship sank. He is Indian from a city called Pondicherry. Since his dad became a zoo keeper, Pi had to live on a zoo. He is also the protagonist of the story.

Patel’s world is turned upside down when, as a child, he realises that the tiger known as Richard Parker isn’t always as tame and innocent as it seems, this was conveyed in the movie with the fathers defining remark, “When you look into the tigers eyes, you see your own emotions reflecting back at you.” When he sees the cruelty and danger of the tiger, Patel begins to see the world in a different way. Consequently, Patel undergoes a spiritual discovery, where he experiments with multiple religions which draws him further away from finding a purpose to life which ultimately leads to his life changing journey. On the boat Patel uses the tiger as a metaphor for himself to tell a story that engages the audience compared to one of much darker and emotionally disturbing nature. We can see Pi’s tiger like characteristics come out close to the end of the movie, where he begins to act much more savagely like a tiger, such as the way he eats his food, giving the effect of dehumanization.

Every day, people are surviving in extreme and extraordinary ways. There is an old folk tale called “The Story of Keesh,” that is an important statement on survival. It is about a young boy in a struggling community in Antarctica. Where getting through each day is a struggle, it is a surprise that young Keesh goes on from one the smallest igloos in the tribe to the man who had the will to lead them all. There is another tale, that is as remarkable as the other.

After rereading the Author’s Note I believe that the thematic aspects of the novel Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, are the main character and and the fact that this novel is non-fiction and based on a true story. The main character, Pi, is a thematic aspect of the novel because he is a character who has a lot of depth. His strong and passionate belief in God causes him to be a thematic aspect. This is because as the reader reads through his crazy adventure and looks finds that he gets saved, they believe it was God’s doing because of his belief in Him/Her. That is how Pi, the main character from Life of Pi, is a thematic aspect.

How can imagination blind anyone so easily? Imagination is dangerous because most of the time people will start believing more in something that is fictional. Therefore it is hard for people to change their minds so that they can see the truth. What needs to be revealed here is which story is the correct story in the Life of Pi. The second story that is told is a more believable story because it actually could have happened. The second story is more realistic, normal, and understandable.

The difference between living and surviving is the will to live and the will to not let death grasp you. In the story Life of Pi, Piscine Patel was striving for survival while stuck in a boat with a Bengal tiger in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Yet in my case I was reaching for the championships in an extremely close soccer game. Both Piscine and I did things that we would not have normally done in regular circumstances. We both had very different situations but we both wanted to end up in a better position than what we were in.