Piscine Molitor Patel is the protagonist and, for most of the novel, the narrator who survived 227 days at sea (however, the author was the one telling the story.)
In the early chapters, Pi, as a shy, graying, middle-aged man, tells the author about his early childhood and the shipwreck that changed his life. As a child, he reads widely and embraces many religions and their rich narratives that provide meaning and dimension to life. Being the son of a zookeeper, a boy full of wonder, he constantly interjects facts about animals and animal behavior into his story. He is slim with dark hair and dark eyes. His attitude is honest, innocent and respectful. He is named after a beautiful pool in Paris because of his father’s love for the stories his friend Francis Adirubasamy tells about the pool. Schoolmates make fun of the name calling Piscine “pissing.” When starting at a new school, Piscine takes the opportunity to adopt a new name, Pi. He also adopts two new religions, Catholicism and Islam, on top of his native Hindu, practicing all three in effort to experience God.
When Pi is sixteen he loses his family in a shipwreck and ends up lost at sea. Though he mourns the loss of his family and fears for his life, he rises to the challenge. He finds a survival guide and emergency provisions. Questioning his own values, he decides that his vegetarianism is a luxury under the conditions and learns to fsh. He capably protects himself from Richard Parker and even assumes a parental relationship with the tiger, providing him with food and keeping him in line. The devastating shipwreck turns Pi into an adult, able to frend for himself out in the world alone.
Relying on faith and his knowledge of animals he is able to survive. Pi may endure a life-threatening adventure with animals aboard his lifeboat, or he may be shipwrecked with his mother and two others, depending on which story the reader chooses to believe. In his interviews with the Japanese investigators after his rescue, he offers first the more fanciful version of his time at sea.
However, at their behest, he then provides an alternative version that is more realistic butultimately less appealing to both himself and his questioners. Pi trains a 450 pound Bengal tiger so that the two survive together, or Pi is the tiger that kills in order to survive.
In the early chapters, Pi, as a shy, graying, middle-aged man, tells the author about his early childhood and the shipwreck that changed his life. As a child, he reads widely and embraces many religions and their rich narratives that provide meaning and dimension to life. Being the son of a zookeeper, a boy full of wonder, he constantly interjects facts about animals and animal behavior into his story. He is slim with dark hair and dark eyes. His attitude is honest, innocent and respectful. He is named after a beautiful pool in Paris because of his father’s love for the stories his friend Francis Adirubasamy tells about the pool. Schoolmates make fun of the name calling Piscine “pissing.” When starting at a new school, Piscine takes the opportunity to adopt a new name, Pi. He also adopts two new religions, Catholicism and Islam, on top of his native Hindu, practicing all three in effort to experience God.
When Pi is sixteen he loses his family in a shipwreck and ends up lost at sea. Though he mourns the loss of his family and fears for his life, he rises to the challenge. He finds a survival guide and emergency provisions. Questioning his own values, he decides that his vegetarianism is a luxury under the conditions and learns to fsh. He capably protects himself from Richard Parker and even assumes a parental relationship with the tiger, providing him with food and keeping him in line. The devastating shipwreck turns Pi into an adult, able to frend for himself out in the world alone.
Relying on faith and his knowledge of animals he is able to survive. Pi may endure a life-threatening adventure with animals aboard his lifeboat, or he may be shipwrecked with his mother and two others, depending on which story the reader chooses to believe. In his interviews with the Japanese investigators after his rescue, he offers first the more fanciful version of his time at sea.
However, at their behest, he then provides an alternative version that is more realistic butultimately less appealing to both himself and his questioners. Pi trains a 450 pound Bengal tiger so that the two survive together, or Pi is the tiger that kills in order to survive.