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Life Of Pi

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Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, is an extraordinary, magical, and emotional novel published in 2001. Named after a french pool, Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi, is the novel's protagonist. Martel's novel tells the story of Pi, who is the son of an Indian zookeeper, born in Pondicherry. After selling their zoo in India and deciding to move to Canada, the Patel family (which consists of Pi, his brother Ravi, his father Santosh, and his mother Gita) boards a Japanese cargo ship called Tsimtsum, with some of the remaining zoo animals. One day, a terrible storm interrupts the voyage and causes the ship to sink very fast. Pi manages to escape in a very small lifeboat, together with a vicious hyena, an injured zebra, a fearsome bengal tiger called Richard Parker, and a sweet orangutan, called …show more content…

Ever since he was very young, Pi simultaneously followed Hinduism, Catholicism, and Islam. When he is forced to share the lifeboat with the four animals, after accepting the fact that he lost his family, which meant everything to him, all that Pi has left to keep him going is his faith. As time goes by, both the orangutan and the zebra are killed by the aggressive hyena. Eventually, the tiger kills the hyena, and Pi realizes that in order to survive, he has to tame Richard Parker so that both of them learn to trust and live with each other. In the beginning of the book, Pi's father taught him a valuable lesson about Richard Parker. He showed Pi how the tiger was aggressive, by feeding him an innocent and harmless goat. This was a clear example of foreshadowing, that implied that Pi would eventually have to face a difficult situation involving an animal. Still, being trapped in a lifeboat with a bengal tiger was totally unexpected. Pi and Richard Parker eventually learn how to live together, even with the very limited available resources and the various problems they encounter. After many long months, the lifeboat reaches an

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