LIFE OF PI by Yann Martel

1
LIFE OF PIby Yann Martel

• GROUP DISCUSSION TOPICS

2
PIS INCREDULOUS SURVIVAL

• Discuss the factors that contribute to Pis
  survival.
• Francis Adirubasamys swimming lessons
• Pis Fathers lessons about wild animals and Pis
  own knowledge about animals (flight distance
  social behavior territorial behavior
  alpha/omega concept circus trainers behavior)
  AND

3
SurvivalPis Ingenuity (Cleverness)

• The temporary prow he builds at first
• The raft he later builds using oars and life
  vests
• The solar sills
• The training of Richard Parker
• Discovery that Pi can make Parker seasick and
  therefore condition and control him
• Learning to fish and catch turtles

4
Survival Richard Parker

• Richard Parkers contribution to Pis Survival
• Parker gives Pi the will to live. (Parker cannot
  survive without Pi Pi is responsible for
  Parkers life) See page 236.
• Parker distracts Pi from thinking about his lost
  family and his tragedy.
• An idle mind tends to sink. Parkers presence
  keeps Pis mind alert and active. (Chapter 57)

5
SurvivalPis Faith and Will to Live

• When Pi is about to give up, he hears a voice in
  his heart. The message is a prayer I will not
  die. I refuse it. I will make it through this
  nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as
  they are. I have survived so far, miraculously.
  Now I will turn miracle into routine. The
  amazing will be seen every day. I will put in
  all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God
  is with me, I will not die. Amen (Chapter 53)
• Pi prays five times every day and practices the
  devotions of all three of his religions,
  Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam
• The blackness would stir and eventually go away,
  and God would remain, a shining point of light in
  my heart. I would go on loving, Pi says
  (Chapter 74).

6
Survival Zoomorphism

• Zoomorphism is a phenomenon when an animal takes
  a human or another species as one of its own
• Pi identifies potential causes for this
  phenomenon
• One is need for companionship
• Social well being is another staves off violent
  anarchy
• Tells of a mouse living with vipers (i.e. snakes)
• A dog serving as surrogate mother for lion cubs
• The rhinos and the goats
• All of this lends credence to his later tale of
  life with Richard Parker on the lifeboat

7
FREEDOM ZOOS AND RELIGION

• I dont mean to defend zoos. Close them all
  down if you want (and let us hope that what
  wildlife remains can survive in what is left of
  the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in
  peoples good graces. Religion faces the same
  problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague
  them both. (19).
• You have known the confined freedom of a zoo
  most of your life, now you will know the free
  confinement of a jungle (Chapter 94). Part of
  Pis imagined farewell speech to Richard Parker.
• Consider these two statements. What do they mean?

8
Two Approaches to Life

• Science and Religion/Reason and Faith
• Mr. Kumar, Pis Biology Teacher, is an atheist.
  He says, There are no grounds for going beyond a
  scientific explanation of reality and no sound
  reason for believing anything but our sense
  experience. A clear intellect, close attention
  to detail and a little scientific knowledge will
  expose religion as superstitious bosh. God does
  not exist (27). Mr. Kumar had polio as a child
  and called out to God for help. He does not think
  God heard him. Pi says that polio must be an
  awful disease if it can kill God in a man.

9
Two Approaches to LifeScience and Religion

• The author describes Pis faith and spirituality
  as Words of divine consciousness moral
  exaltation lasting feelings of elevation,
  elation, joy a quickening of the moral sense,
  which strikes me as more important than an
  intellectual understanding of things an
  alignment of the universe along moral lines, not
  intellectual ones a realization that the
  founding principle of existence is what we call
  love, which works itself out sometimes not
  clearly, not cleanly, not immediately,
  nonetheless ineluctably (63).

10
Two Approaches to Life Science and Religion

• Bapu Ghandi said, All religions are true. I
  just want to love God (69). Pi gives this
  response to the three holy men of the three
  different religions that Pi embraces. These men
  and Pis parents insist that a person can only
  have one religion. Pi disagrees.

11
On Religion

• Pi also says, The main battlefield for good is
  not the open ground of the public arena but the
  small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot
  of widows and homeless children is very hard, and
  it is to their defense, not Gods, that the
  self-righteous should rush. To me, religion is
  about our dignity, not our depravity (71).

12
On Religion

• Pis father and mother are not religious people,
  and they do not understand Pis religious
  practices. His father says, Progress is
  unstoppable. It is a drumbeat to which we must
  all march. Technology helps and good ideas
  spreadthese are two laws of nature. If you
  dont let technology help you, if you resist good
  ideas, you condemn yourself to dinosaurhood!
  (75).

13
On Dry, Yeastless Factuality

• When Mr. Okamota and Mr. Chiba do not believe
  Pis story, Pi becomes angry with them. Mr.
  Okamota tells Pi, We believe what we see.
• Mr. Okamota also tells Pi his story contradicts
  the laws of nature (i.e. science)
• Pi says, If you stumble at mere believability,
  what are you living for? Isnt love hard to
  believe?

14
Dry, Yeastless Factuality

• When they persist in their disbelief, Pi shouts
  at them Dont you 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? (297)

15
Dry, Yeastless Factuality

• Pi also tells Okamota and Chiba, be excessively
  reasonable and you risk throwing out the universe
  with the bathwater (298). Tigers exist,
  lifeboats exist, oceans exist. Because the three
  have never come together in your narrow, limited
  experience, you refuse to believe that they
  might. Yet the plain fact is that the Tsimtsum
  brought them together and then sank. (299)

16
Dry, Yeastless Factuality

• Pi finally gets frustrated and tells Okamota and
  Chiba, I know what you want. You want a story
  that wont surprise you. That will confirm what
  you already know. That wont make you see higher
  or further or differently. You want a flat story.
  An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless
  factuality (302).

17
Pis Second, Factual Story

• Pi finally gives the men what they want, a more
  believable story.
• When he is finished telling this second story, he
  asks them, So tell me, since it makes no factual
  difference to you and you cant prove the
  question either way, which story do you prefer?
  Which is the better story, the story with animals
  or the story without animals?
• They agree the story with animals is better and
  Pi says, And so it goes with God.

18
Science and Religion Mutually Exclusive?

• Mr. Okamotas report makes reference to the
  tiger, so it appears that Pi converts him to
  believing what is hard to believe.
• When we study Inherit the Wind, this issue of a
  scientific vs. a religious view of life and
  knowledge will arise again.
• Pi uses both reason and faith in his life. At
  least for Pi, the two approaches to life are not
  mutually exclusive.