Yann Martel's Life Of Pi

What would you do if you were stranded on a single lifeboat in the middle of the ocean with a bengal tiger for 227 days? Would you give up? Would you fight for your life? Well in the book, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Piscine Molitor Patel fought for his life, and was not giving up. Life of Pi is about a sixteen year old boy named Piscine Molitor Patel who lives in Pondicherry with his family. In Pondicherry, his dad owns and runs a zoo. Then, the family decides to move to canada for more opportunities, however, on the way there, the boat that had the family and all of the animals crashed. That resulted in Pi being stuck on a lifeboat with a bengal tiger for 227 days until he landed ashore in Mexico. The story is about his life back home, and

Pi said, ''It seems orange---such a nice Hindu colour---is the colour of survival because the whole inside of the boat and the tarpaulin and the life jackets and the lifebuoy and the oars and most every other significant object aboard was orange''(Martel 138). Because of his knowledge in Hinduism, he was able to relate just a simple color, to a characteristic that was very much needed to make it through this whole ordeal, survival. He had even the slightest observations that could still relate back to religion that would help him survive 227 days out in the middle of the ocean. Also, being a Christian helped him realize that he couldn’t control what was going to happen to him, so he left it in the hands of God. This helped him take a step back, and realize everything was out of his hands, but he could still continue to try really hard to stay alive with the chance that God may get him to shore at some point. Lastly, being an Atheist helped him see the scientific part of the whole situation. With this mindset, it helped him figure out how he would get food, water, deal with Richard Parker, etc. He didn’t just rely on God, he realized he had to do some things for himself if he wanted at least a higher chance of survival. Being a religious person also helped him pass time. Every morning and night, he would pray. He felt that because it passed so much time, it was one of the keys to his

In Pondicherry, Pi lived on a zoo that his dad ran. With all of the animals, Pi came to understand early in his life that repetition is very important with animals. Everyday, the animals would have the same feeding time. That was a standard that was kept throughout his time there. After the animals had the same feeding time for years on end, they started to pick it up and they would know when they were about to be fed. Or, if they weren’t in the same place at the same time every day after following that pattern, Pi, or his dad would know that something was wrong. Just like humans, we have a schedule too. At school, we have lunch at the same time everyday. If we ever have lunch later for some reason, there would be an uproar, because we had gotten used to our schedule. The animals in the zoo would react the same way if they were given there food late. After Pi had learned this, he then used his knowledge on repetition in other ways. After he was sick of people making fun of his name, he decided he would have a nickname for himself that didn’t sound like “pissing”. Put in transition“Before the teacher could say a word, I picked up a piece of chalk and I said and I wrote: My name is Piscine Molitor Patel, known to all as - I double underlined the first two letters of my given name- Pi Patel...I repeated the stunt with every teacher”( Martel 22-23). He was able to control what people called him, and made sure