LIFE OF PI by Yann Martel

CHAPTERS 73 – 100

RESOURCES:
• http://www.wikisummaries.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi
• https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lifeofpi
• http://www.shmoop.com/life-of-pi/literary-devices.html

• https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/l/life-of-pi

• Mrs Sperry.com
• Course Hero
• Lit Charts
• MacRat Success Series
• Oxford Exam Success Literature
• X-Kit Achieve

PICTURE SOURCES:
• Google image

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CHAPTER 73
• Pi wishes he had a book that he could read over and over and appreciate it each time.
• He wishes for scripture, the Bible, Krishna’s words, or some book that engages his
mind and raises his spirits (to escape from his situation).
• He considers himself as Arjuna (character in a Hindu story), but without any advice
from Krishna.
• Pi remembers finding a Gideon’s Bible in a hotel. He believes that finding scripture
when in need of a place of rest is an excellent way to spread faith.
• He would even appreciate a novel, but all he has is the survival manual and he is tired
of reading it over and over.
• He keeps a diary, writing small so as not to run out of his limited supply of paper.
• The things he writes are not chronological, but clumps of information about the events
and feelings he is experiencing.

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❑ Pi wishes for divine guidance in the form of a book.
❑ He refers to himself as Arjuna, the “Doer of Good Deeds,” about whom the story
from the Hindu scripture is written.
❑ Arjuna is reluctant to battle against people who are dear to him, but Krishna
reminds him of samsara (the cycle of reincarnation) and moksha (liberation from
the cycle and its worldly conception of self). This shows Arjuna that death is not a
bad thing.
❑ Arjuna can then complete his task. The relationship between Arjuna and Krishna is
that of Man guided by God.
❑ Pi has a task to complete, but no godly words of wisdom to guide him.
❑ Having nothing to read, he writes.

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 HINDU STORY
OF MAN
GUIDED BY GOD

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1. What does the possession of a book represent to Pi?
The words and ideas contained in a book would mean some form of human contact for
Pi. He would also be able to read messages of hope and encouragement.

2. What is significant about Pi wanting to read a holy scripture at this point?

It shows he has not lost his religious faith or his desire to connect with holy words.

3. Why is Pi so moved by the Gideon Bible he once found in a Canadian hotel

room?
He sees placing a book of scripture, a book of spiritual guidance and sustenance, into
the hands of possibly weary and discouraged travellers a wonderfully generous
gesture. He says that this is a much better way to spread the truths of a religion than
booming sermons from a pulpit.
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4. Pi describes the kind of things he writes in his diary “... how I felt ... All very
practical stuff” (end of Chapter 73). In what ways is this statement a
contradiction?
He lumps his feelings in with the practical details of his daily survival, perhaps
showing that the business of survival is paramount.

5. What religious rituals does Pi practise?

He practises Christian, Hindu and Islam rituals.

6. Why does Pi begin to keep his diary?

He does not specifically say, but it clearly has to do with the need to communicate,
have
some form of human interaction and find encouragement.

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CHAPTER 74
• Pi conducts Christian, Hindu and Islamic religious rituals without materials.
• This practice is comforting, yet difficult to have faith and give love.
• When feeling his lowest he professes out loud his belief in God as Creator.
• However, the creations of God that Pi has in his current possession are rapidly
deteriorating, as is his spirit.
• Before his clothing fall apart, Pi makes a turban called ‘God’s hat’ and calls his attire
God’s attire.
• He remembers his family and rekindles the light of God.
• The appearance of fish also distracts Pi and despair passes.

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1. Why is it significant that Pi can maintain some form of religious devotion
even without the trapping of religion?
• Pi is learning the difference between faith and religion, that God can be worshipped
and prayed to without the intercession of a priest or kneeling on a prayer rug facing
Mecca.
2. Why does Pi say it was hard to maintain faith?
• Pi describes faith as an act of letting go and trusting, and he has found it very
difficult to let go and trust during his ordeal.
3. What is the primary theme of this chapter?
• The primary theme of this chapter has something to do with the triumph of faith
over mere religion and over intense suffering. Even while fearing for his life and
suffering the privations he has been suffering, Pi maintains his observances of faith.
He prays even without the prescribed trappings of his three professed religions. He
also finds humour and strength in the deterioration of his clothes, shouting out that
it is God’s pants that are deteriorating, God’s hat that is falling apart, etc.
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CHAPTER 75
• Pi sings “Happy Birthday” to his mother as he guesses it is her birthday.
• In the midst of the daily utility of survival, Pi does indeed go on loving.

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CHAPTER 76
• Pi cleans up after Richard Parker’s bowel movements, which like Pi’s have
become painful and infrequent due to inadequate diet.
• But the cleaning is more than zoo keeping; it is there to prevent disease.
• Pi explains that Richard Parker had hidden the faeces indicating that the tiger
wishes not to offend Pi.
• Richard Parker sees Pi as dominant.
• Pi uses the process of cleaning up as an act of “psychological bullying,” rolling
the faeces in his hand, sniffing it and staring.
• It is frightening, yet satisfying, for Pi to exert his dominance.

❑ Pi needs to continuously assert himself as the super-alpha male,

which is quite an expenditure of energy.
❑ He is having success in this, but his health, and Richard Parker’s, is
declining.

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 Pi is using a gaff

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1. What is the most significant contrast between these two
chapters?
In these two chapters, Pi is a loving son singing “Happy Birthday” to
his mother, and a base animal using another animal’s faeces to
maintain his animal dominance.
2. What theme is Martel emphasizing with Pi’s detailed discussion
of feces?
Martel is establishing the theme of Pi’s continual descent from the
spiritual to the base.

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CHAPTER 77

• Pi restricts his own rations of biscuits as the survival supply diminishes.

• Always hungry, he now eats turtles and all parts of a fish, even the parts he
would have previously used only for bait.
• He compares every morsel to the very best Indian cuisine.
• His mood changes with the degree of fullness of his stomach. He eats
everything.
• Pi tries eating Richard Parker’s faeces.
• Having “abandoned the last vestiges of humanness” he catches the
emerging ball in a cup and adds some water to it.
• He puts it into his mouth and finds that it is truly waste with no nutrients.
• He spits it out and feeds the remainder to the fish. Pi’s health continues to
decline. 13
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• Pi uses the practice of cleaning up after Richard Parker to enforce his
position as alpha male.

• He shifts from lifeboat rations to the sea as his source of food.

❑ These chapters emphasise how desperate and how divided Pi is: he is

ruler over a tiger by sheer will, yet so pathetic that he eats the animal’s
faeces.

❑ This also shows his further descent into animalism/savagery and his
resemblance to the hyena (which is known to eat the excrement of
other animals).

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❑ Pi considers his wretched foodstuffs a menu of Indian dishes,
even Richard Parker’s faeces is “like a big ball of gulab jamon”
(fried balls of dough and chopped nuts served with sugar syrup).

❑ He is in a starvation induced dreamy delirium.

❑ His physical and mental states are worsening.

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1. Of what is Pi’s adoration of turtle flesh, eggs, and the versatility of turtle
shells reminiscent?
This section is reminiscent of some of the suggestions in the survival manual in
Chapter 58

2. When the biscuits are finished, what does Pi turn to for food?
At this point in his struggle to survive, Pi will eat anything.

3. Why does Pi find that the connection between food and emotional well-
being is frightening?
Asca spiritual being, Pi had always been taught and believed that happiness and satisfaction
came from things other than physical pleasures and comfort. But when one is reduced to one’s
lowest, happiness hinges on one thought: whether or not one’s belly is full.
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CHAPTER 78
• Pi describes the rich variations in the clouds, colour, light and rainfall of the sky.

• Then he describes the many sounds of the sea.

• Between the two are the winds, the moons and all the nights Pi spends drifting.

• He is living in an unchanging geometry of circles.

• The vista around him as far as he can see forms a circle.

• The sun is a loud, disturbing circle from which he wants to hide.

• The moon is a silent circle, tauntingly reminding Pi of his solitude.

• He wonders if there might be another “also trapped by geometry, also struggling

with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy.”

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• There are opposing feelings associated with every circumstance.

• The sun is scorching and painful, yet it cures the strips of fish Pi hangs, and powers his solar
stills.

• Night is relief from the blinding heat of day, but it is cold and frightening.

• When hot and dry he wishes to be wet.

• When it rains he nearly drowns.

• When he catches food he must gorge himself before it spoils.

• The rest of the time he starves.

• The hardest to cope with are the opposite, yet sometimes simultaneous feelings of boredom
and terror.

• Thoughts of death are the only constants, and happiness comes from tiny, pathetic triumphs
like finding a tiny dead fish.

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❑ There is irony in a boy named Pi describing circles, and like the mathematical
pi, his journey is inexact and endless.

❑ He has no way of knowing if is he is getting anywhere or just going in circles.

❑ Even his spirit is cycling between hopefulness and despair.

❑ His musings about the possibility of another in his predicament foreshadows

an actual meeting.

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1. What effect is Martel achieving by opening this chapter with
descriptions of the “many skies” and “many seas”?
As he has already done a few times already, Martel is trying to convey a
sense of the passing of endless time. This time he focuses on the
changing appearance of the ocean and the sky as day follows day.
2. Explain the mathematical allusion Pi makes.
Pi says, “to be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle.”
He adds, “[a castaway’s] gaze is always a radius” and “the circumference is
never great.” These allusions are particularly appropriate for Pi because his
nickname is the term that refers to the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its
diameter.
3. What does Pi say is “the worst pair of opposites” for someone
stranded at sea?
He names boredom and terror.
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CHAPTER 79
• Several species of sharks frequently come near the lifeboat.
• Their grace and deep colours are a pleasant distraction for Pi.
• He catches a mako by the base of the tail and the shark leaps into Richard Parker’s end of the boat.
• The tiger attacks it.
• Pi watches Richard Parker’s frightening display of power.
• However, the tiger has no experience with sharks and steps into the mako’s mouth.
• The shark clamps down on Richard Parker’s paw.
• Richard Parker roars with such fierceness that Pi collapses.
• The tiger slashes at the shark with his three free paws.
• Pi regains himself and retreats to the raft.
• There is terrible snarling and rocking of the lifeboat.
• Finally, Richard Parker sits up having defeated the shark.
• Pi is able to gaff bits of the shark meat for himself.
• He learns to go for smaller sharks and stabs them through the eyes for a fast kill. 22
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❑ Pi describes the animal battle with a zoological detachedness.
❑ He seems to have lost his compassion.
❑ Except for being frightened by Richard Parker’s tremendous roar, there is no
emotion.
❑ Pi approaches the matter of eating meat and killing sharks in a cold, matter-of-fact
way.
❑ Faith. He often comes close to losing it, but God always remains and Pi “would go
on loving.”

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CHAPTER 80
• There is another school of airborne flying fish.
• Pi ducks behind a turtle shell while Richard Parker swats at and eats the fish.
• A dorado pursuing the flying fish crashes into the lifeboat and is stunned.
• Pi retrieves it from the water and praises Jesus-Matsya.
• The large fish catches Richard Parker’s attention.
• Reluctant to give up his prize, Pi defiantly stares down the tiger.
• Eventually, Richard Parker submits and returns to the flying fish.
• To his amazement, Pi is truly the master here.
• This gives Pi the confidence to spend more time aboard the lifeboat.

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❑ Jesus-Matsya is Pi’s own combination deity.

❑ Jesus is the name of the Christian Christ who sacrifices himself

for mankind, and Matsya is Vishnu in the form of a fish from the
story of the Great Flood.

❑ So the fish sacrifices itself for Pi’s salvation.

❑ Pi demonstrates here how hunger can make someone foolhardy

enough to challenge a tiger, yet he is strong enough in spirit to
defeat Richard Parker.

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1. What is the significance of Richard Parker’s encounter with the shark?
• This is the first time – quite possibly in Richard Parker’s entire life – that his
prey has fought back and caused him injury.
2. To what is Pi alluding when he thanks “Jesus-Matsya” after catching
the big fish?
• In the Gospels of Matthew and John, one of Jesus’ most notable miracles was
feeding five thousand people with only two fishes and five loaves of bread. In
Hinduism, Matsya is a part-man, part-fish incarnation of the god Vishnu.
Clearly, Pi, who is a devotee of both Hinduism and Christianity, is combining
the two notions into a single prayer of gratitude for the catch of a huge fish.
3. How does Pi establish his mastery of Richard Parker in this episode?
• Pi establishes his mastery simply by the force of his will.
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CHAPTER 81
• Pi reflects on the incredibility of his survival.

• He attributes his success partially to the fact that Richard Parker is a zoo
animal and is without any natural sources of food and water.

• Pi is the supplier.

• He describes his relationship with the tiger as “pure and miraculous.”

• The concrete proof that Pi is able to survive is the fact that it is he who
narrates this story.

❑ Since the story is indeed incredible, Martel interjects reasonable proof here.

❑ In Part One, the author provided background to reinforce reality.

❑ In Part Two, it is Pi reassuring the reader that his ordeal is true.

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CHAPTER 82
• Obtaining and protecting fresh water is Pi’s obsession.
• He stores what he can carefully, mixes some salt water into Richard Parker’s
ration and drinks of the rain when he can.
• Yet, there is never enough to drink.
• Food is also scarce, especially since Richard Parker gets the bulk of whatever
Pi catches.
• Pi eats whatever he gets his hands on quickly, partly out of starvation and
partly to get his share before Richard Parker gets it.
• He feels that he has sunken to the level of an animal.
❑ As Pi’s condition weakens he is concerned only with basic survival.
❑ There isn’t a glimmer of the deep concern he once had for other living things.
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1. What is the actual key to Pi’s “dominance” over Richard Parker?
• Pi is Richard Parker’s main provider of food and water, so Richard Parker never
attacks him.

2. At what heartbreaking realization does Pi arrive in Chapter 82? Why is this

development significant?
• Pi realizes that he eats as hastily, as ravenously, as indiscriminately, and as noisily
as an animal – as Richard Parker. This is significant because Pi’s coming of age
seems to involve his descent from spiritual humanity to a form of savagery.

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CHAPTER 83
• There is a tremendous storm with huge waves that threaten to sink the lifeboat.

• Pi decides to take his chances with Richard Parker rather than with the sea, so
he climbs under the tarpaulin and closes it over the boat.

• He holds on to the tarpaulin rope and the bow bench to keep from being
thrown onto Richard Parker as the boat tosses in the storm.

• At night the sky clears. Pi is soaked and bruised. The raft is gone.

• Most of the food has washed overboard, but the bags of water in the locker are
unbroken.

• Pi unhooks the tarpaulin, and soon after daylight, Richard Parker emerges.

• Pi mends the tarpaulin and bails the boat as the tiger looks on disinterested.

• He finds one last orange whistle. 31

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❑ Pi is distraught.

❑ When he closes himself into the lifeboat with the tiger he is

choosing his mode of death - by animal rather than by water.
❑ He has lost hope for survival.

❑ But at the end of the chapter, the sun is out and Pi finds some
hope in the last whistle, a whistle that helps him hold his
dominance over Richard Parker.

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1. What is the significance of this storm at this point in Pi’s narrative?
• This is the worst storm Pi has experienced, and it costs him a great deal
of what he has accomplished before.

2. On what note does this chapter end?

• The chapter ends of the suspenseful note that Pi has little chance left to
survive. The sea has taken his provisions, and he has only one orange
whistle left with which to maintain his dominance over Richard Parker.

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CHAPTER 84
• A whale swims by the lifeboat.
• Pi imagines the whales communicating his predicament all through the ocean,
seeking help.
• Unfortunately, they are harpooned.
• Dolphins swim by as well and, though he tries, Pi is unable to catch one on his
gaff.
• There are birds which Pi hopes are a sign there is land close by.
• He catches one, breaks its neck and eats every organ.
• He tosses the skin, bones and feathers to Richard Parker. “None of the birds
ever announced land.”

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❑ Pi falls to anthropomorphizing again as the whales converse about him in
his imagination.

❑ It is indicative of his starving condition that Pi could, at the same time,

consider the killing of whales a “heinous crime,” yet attempt to gaff a
dolphin.

❑ He refers to the albatross as “supernatural” perhaps referring to Coleridge’s

Rime of the Ancient Mariner where the Mariner frees himself of the curse
from killing the albatross when he regains his ability to pray.

❑ The birds’ ability to announce land comes from the Bible story of the great
Flood when Noah sends out a dove, and the dove returns with an olive leaf
indicating there is dry land.

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CHAPTER 85
• Pi is awestruck by a spectacular lightning storm – the lightning strikes the water.

• He tries to share his wonder with Richard Parker, but the tiger is trembling with fright.

• Pi describes the light as overwhelming, penetrating and a miracle. He is not afraid.

• He praises Allah (Muslim word for God) and tries to get Richard Parker to share his joy.
Pi is happy.

❑ Occurrences such as this are what keep Pi going.

❑ As he described earlier, he gleans happiness from any source he can.

❑ This is a moment of divine wonder for Pi.

❑ He praises God and is happy.

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1. What is the point of Pi’s fantasy about the whales?
• Pi is alone, bereft of friends and family. His one constant companion is also
a constant threat to his life. He has several times claimed to believe he is
also in the presence of God, but the whales offer him the opportunity to
imagine a real and physical and caring presence.
•
2. Why is Pi so positively affected by the lightning storm?
• For Pi, it is a moment of wonder, both the same as and the opposite of the
calm, starry night when he realized the vastness of the Universe. Any
revelation of divinity – like the starry sky and the powerful lightning bolts –
provides Pi the opportunity to focus his thoughts on bigger things than his
own personal suffering.
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CHAPTER 86
• Pi sees a ship! With uncontrollable happiness Pi envisions his family safe in Canada
where he will join them.
• He is amazed at the size of the tanker as it approaches, and then realizes in horror
that it is about the hit the lifeboat.
• Pi is rowing frantically and manoeuvres the lifeboat slightly, so the tanker misses it by
less than two feet.
• He fires a flare that hits the side of the ship.
• The ship passes by, noisily. Pi is unable to get anyone’s attention.
• Richard Parker seems to be aware that something important has happened but is
more concerned with resuming his nap.
• Pi bursts out with professions of love for Richard Parker, his only companion, and
promises to get the tiger to land.
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❑ This is the event presaged by Pi in Chapter 69.

❑ A ship has cut into his tiny circle, but did not see him.

❑ Pi is over having to constantly assert his position as super-alpha male.

❑ He sees Richard Parker as his companion and his salvation.

HOPE DESPAIR

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1. What is suggested by the fact that no on the oil tanker sees Pi?
• Pi’s lifeboat is so close to the tanker, and it bears upon him so quickly
and passes so quickly – with no apparent threat of collision or capsizing.
Plus, no one sees or hears Pi either on the boat’s approach or departure.
All of this suggests that the ship was merely an illusion.
•
2. At the end of this chapter, Pi tells Richard Parker that he loves him.
Why does Pi love Richard Parker?
• If he did not have Richard Parker, Pi would be completely alone. Also,
Richard Parker is another living soul, a being who has suffered and
struggled to survive even as Pi has.
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CHAPTER 87
• Pi uses a wet cloth he calls his “dream rag” to cover his face, impeding
his air intake so he falls into amazing dreams.
• This passes the time and allows Pi a temporary escape.

❑ Chapter 81 convinces the reader of the factuality of Pi’s story.

❑ Now, Chapter 87 suggests that some “remembrances” are induced by
the “dream rag.”
❑ However, using the simple language of a boy and providing such
detailed descriptions keeps the reader believing.

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CHAPTER 88
• The lifeboat drifts into a mass of trash.

• It is revolting and foul. The odour remains on the wind for a long time.

• Pi salvages only a wine bottle.

• He writes a message explaining his predicament, corks and seals the bottle, and
launches it out to sea.

❑ Pi sees the glory of God in of the obstacles that nature presents.

❑ He has nothing praiseworthy to say about this man-made mass of garbage.

❑ He does, however, indicate that he still has hope and places that hope in the
bottle.
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1. What is the significance of Pi’s newfound method of “escape”?
It seems that Pi is playing with death, toying, perhaps with suicide.

2. What is the point of Pi’s encountering the trash?

After so many days at sea – representing the natural world – the first
inkling of humanity that Pi encounters is evidence of humanity’s pollution
of that natural world.

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CHAPTER 89
• All that Pi has is deteriorating rapidly.
• Even the bright orange items have faded to being almost white.
• The sun is so brutal it even burns off smells.
• Richard Parker is as withered (this) as Pi. The tiger “became a skeleton in an
oversized bag of faded fur.”
• He makes a last entry in his diary before the pens runs out. He writes of his
wasted(skinny) condition.

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• Pi describes a visit by a tiger shark. His attempt to gall a dolphin
shows that he is weak. He cannot even blow the whistle.
• He and Richard Parker sleep most of the time and it feels they will
die soon.
• Rain brings momentary salvation, but the tiger does not respond to
it. It washed the salt off his body.
• Pi touches him to see if he is still alive. It is an amazing experience to
touch a tiger.
• Pi gives up. “It’s no use. Today I die. I will die today. I die.”

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❑ The bright orange of survival has faded.
❑ Pi has nothing left, physically or mentally.
❑ Yet the feel of the tiger is amazing. At the brink of death,
❑ Pi is still grateful for Richard Parker.

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CHAPTER 90

• Richard Parker loses his vision.

• Soon after, Pi loses his.
• Pi is so weak he cannot stand or feed himself.
• The loss of his vision adds emotional pain to his physical torment.
• He closes his eyes and resolves to die with a farewell prayer.

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➢ Pi hears a voice.
➢ He thinks it is an illusion, but converses with the voice at length about food.
➢ He goes on about an imaginary feast of Indian cuisine.
➢ The voice begins to suggest other dishes, dishes made from meats and animal
organs.
➢ Pi suggests eating a carrot.
➢ The voice replies that it would rather not eat a carrot.
➢ This statement convinces Pi that he is talking to a true meat-eater, Richard Parker.
➢ He asks the voice if he has ever killed a man.
➢ The voice replies that it has killed a man and a woman, and eaten them.
➢ Pi scolds the voice for its animalism.
“So, you would throw the first stone, would you?” replies the voice.
➢ Pi changes the subject to more talk of food.
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❖It strikes Pi as peculiar that Richard Parker has a
French accent.
❖Drifting in and out of consciousness, Pi realizes that
someone else must really be there.
❖ He calls out to the voice and tells his name.
❖The voice, another castaway, responds, asking for food.
❖They discover that they have both gone blind, probably
from poor hygiene and malnutrition.

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❖ They exchange more stories about food.
❖ The other castaway offers to trade Pi miscellaneous items for
food.
❖ Pi explains that he has no food.
❖ The man tells of eating cigarettes and a boot.
Pi repeats his food story, “Once upon a time there was a banana,
and it grew. It grew until it was large, firm, yellow and fragrant. Then it
fell to the ground and someone came upon it and ate it and afterwards
that person felt better.”

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❖ The other castaway is distraught.
❖ Pi tells him that they should get together and “feast on each other’s
company.”
❖ They tie their boats together and the other man boards Pi’s lifeboat.
❖ They embrace, Pi in tears.
❖ Pi tries to tell the man about the tiger, but the man is trying to kill and eat
Pi.
❖ Richard Parker saves Pi’s life by eating the other man.
❖ Pi is mortified.

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• Blindness. Trachoma is one such example of a treatable condition.

• Here, however, Pi has lost his sight not only in terms of vision, but he
has lost sight of his humanity.

• He has become progressively more animal-like, as has the other

castaway (the “voice”).

• When he invites the other castaway to “feast on each other,” his

invitation is taken quite literally.

• Pi’s crying over the other man represents his gaining back human
emotion.

• Gaining back his humanity helps him gain back his vision.

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❑ The remark about the “first stone” is a reference from the Bible where, when
Christ is challenged to stone an accused adulteress, He replies that he who is
without sin may cast the first stone.

❑ The “voice” is chiding Pi, implying that perhaps Pi is guilty of cannibalism.

❑ Pi changes the subject, but later will indeed be guilty.

❑ The story of the banana tree is rooted in Indian legend. Some speak of bananas
as the “forbidden fruit”.

❑ Many refer to the banana as Kalpatharu, the herb with all imaginable uses.

❑ The Kalpatharu Tree is the “Wish Granting Tree” that came from an ocean of milk
stirred by the gods.

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❑ Another possible interpretation is from Pi’s own perspective, for if he came upon a
banana tree he could return to vegetarianism and health, and he would “feel
better.”

❑ Martel pushes the reader to the limits of credibility.

❑ Pi wondered in Chapter 78 if there could be another lost like himself, and here is
that “other.”

❑ However, Pi at this point freely admits he may be delusional, which leaves a

window of scepticism open for those readers who doubt.

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1. What is the point of Pi’s having run out of ink before he ran out of paper?
Clearly, the ink and the paper represent something, possibly the substance of
survival versus the spirit. Earlier, Pi thought the biggest challenge to his survival
would have been running out of supplies, but now it is his will that is faltering.

2. What is the symbolic significance of blindness? What might this suggest about Pi?
Blindness typically represents a lack of knowledge or understanding, an inability to
perceive a truth. Pi’s blindness could represent that, on a symbolic or metaphorical
level, he cannot see, or is not aware, of the truth of his situation.

3. What saddens Pi the most about his continual deterioration?

Pi is upset because he can no longer care for Richard Parker.
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4. What clue do we have that Pi’s account of the episode with the blind
Frenchman might not be precisely factual?
It is highly unlikely that two blind castaways, drifting aimlessly and with no
awareness of or control over their whereabouts, would by sheer coincidence
meet one another in the Pacific Ocean.

5. What theme does Pi’s story about the man finding the banana and feeling
better suggest?
Pi’s use of stories to bolster his and the Frenchman’s spirits illustrates the
importance of story to human survival – especially emotional and psychological
survival.

6. What happens emotionally to Pi with the death of the Frenchman?

He says, “Something in me died then that has never come back to life.” The
Frenchman’s death has altered Pi irrevocably (forever).
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CHAPTER 91
• Pi scavenges around in the other man’s boat and finds water and a bit of food.

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• When Pi starts crying his vision returns partially; he rinses his eyes with seawater
repeatedly.
• In two days, his vision returns.
• The first thing he sees is the “butchered dismembered body” of the Frenchman
castaway. Richard Parker had eaten his face so Pi cannot see what looks like.
• Pi confesses to using some of the man’s flesh for bait, and even eating some of the
dried bits himself.
• He prays for the man’s soul.

❑ It is not unusual that the madness and starvation of being lost at sea lead to
cannibalism.
❑ Pi, however stops when he catches a fish.
❑ Richard Parker, true to his name (see Notes Chapter 48), is part of a cannibalism
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➢ Pi’s voyage can be read as a metaphor for a kind of hell: blind, lost souls moving through the sea
with no idea who they are speaking to or where they are going, and luring innocents to their death.

➢ On a more literal level, it is a sign of the extent of Pi’s hallucinatory state that he thinks Richard
Parker is talking.

➢ It also indicates how close his relationship with the tiger has become.

➢ Although Richard Parker responds swiftly by killing and eating the other castaway and saves Pi’s
life, Pi is brought to tears of mortification, sorrow and despair.

➢ Pi realises his descent into animalism and savagery is complete and weeps for his loss of
innocence, dignity and humanity.

➢ Earlier, when Pi killed a fish for the first time, he was overcome by guilt and sorrow.

➢ Now he is capable of eating human flesh.

➢ The water image reminds us of his baptism.

➢ In many religions water is associated with cleansing and redemption.

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Chapter 91

1. What is significant about how Pi recovers from his blindness?

Pi’s tears – expressions of grief and remorse – clears out his eyes and
restores his sight.

2. What climactic event occurs in this chapter?

Pi descends into cannibalism.

3. Why do Pi and the tiger go blind?

Their eyes become encrusted with salt and blindness is also a symptom of starvation.

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4. Who does Pi think is speaking to him and why do you think he imagines this?
He thinks Richard Parker is speaking to him. He is hallucinating from lack of food and
water, and it is also an indication of his feeling of close connectedness to the tiger in
their mutual ordeal.

5. What is the irony of the castaway’s saying, “Come my brother let us ... feast on
each other’s company”?
The castaway soon attempts to kill and eat Pi.

6. What excuse does Pi give for his cannibalism?

He was driven by extreme “unremitting” hunger and was in a hallucinatory state.

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 CHAPTER 92
• Pi drifts to an island made only of plants, no soil, just floating plant-mass.
• It is entirely green, Pi’s favourite colour and the colour of Islam.
• Pi thinks it is an illusion, but decides to try stepping out onto it.
• He smells the vegetation.
• Stunned, he falls overboard on the green mass.
• He examines the tube-like algae.
• He tastes it.
• The inside is salty, but the outside is sugary sweet.
• Pi continues to break off and eat pieces of algae.
• He drags himself to the shade of an algal tree, which smells like a lote tree but is
not.
• He weeps and praises God.
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1. How does Pi justify the episode he is about to tell about his time
on the island?
Pi admits that many people will not believe this part, but that it is “part of
the story and it happened to him.”

2. Why does Pi rely so heavily on the survival manual’s instructions

when disembarking onto the island?
Pi must be careful that what he thinks is an island that won’t turn out to be
a mirage, an illusion.

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3. List some of the mysteries Pi comes to discover about the island.
• The island appears to be free-floating and made completely of algae.
• The algae is edible and tastes sweet.
• The island is dotted with hundreds of freshwater ponds.
• The island is populated by hundreds of meerkats, who have no fear of predators.
• At night, the island, which appears hilly in the daytime, flattens out.
• At night, dead fish float to the surface of the freshwater pools, but by daylight they are
gone.
• The meerkats sleep in the trees at night and return to their burrows in the morning.
Richard Parker, who is content to leave the lifeboat every morning and roam the island,
returns to the boat every night.
• One night, he returns late to the boat, obviously distressed and licking his paws. The
one time, Pi touches the island at night with his bare feet, he feels a stinging, burning
pain.
• Pi discovers what he thinks is a fruit-bearing tree, but the fruit turns out to be curled
leaves with a human tooth at the center of each. 96
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4. Why does Richard Parker continue killing animals, even after he is no
longer hungry?
As a predatory animal, Richard Parker has an instinct to hunt. All those months
at sea have caused him to keep his hunting instinct pent up. He kills to eat, but
he also kills simply to satisfy his urge to kill.

5. What is the likely symbolic significance of this island?

Taking into consideration the ease with which Pi is able to secure food and
water and the native meerkats’ lack of fear of predators, all conditions Pi told us
earlier were the “two relentless imperatives of the wild”, the island is reminiscent
of the biblical Garden of Eden.

6. Structurally, why do you think the author chose to place the island
episode where he did in the novel?
On a symbolic level, this is Pi’s return to carefree innocence. The horrendous realization
that he cannot be innocent again, immediately follows the most horrible incident in Pi’s
fight for survival – his descent into cannibalism.
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CHAPTER 93

• Pi’s resources are exhausted.

• He has nothing left to draw upon.

• At his absolute lowest, he seeks the highest. “I should turn to God.”

❑ Pi has no reason to be alive.

❑ After intermittent cycles of faith and loss of conviction, he ultimately

turns to God.

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 CHAPTER 94
• The lifeboat is precariously washed ashore in Mexico.
• Pi clambers over the side of the lifeboat into the surf.
• Richard Parker stumbles across the beach into the jungle and disappears without
looking back.
• Without the tiger, Pi feels orphaned, but realizes he is not as he compares the
beach to the cheek of God.
• People find Pi and he weeps for the loss of Richard Parker.
• He despairs that there wasn’t a proper goodbye to give the story a harmonious
shape.
• A proper conclusion, such as telling Pi’s story in exactly one hundred chapters,
allows closure.

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• Pi wishes he had been in Richard Parker’s thoughts as the tiger left.
• He also regrets to this day that he did not take the opportunity to thank
the tiger and wish it, “farewell. God be with you.”
• Pi is taken to a village, bathed vigorously and fed.
• He eats insatiably.
• He is taken to a hospital and eventually to his foster mother in Canada.
• Thanks are extended to all those that helped him.

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❑ Ironically, this chapter is not about God as the previous chapter implied, but about
landfall.
❑ It is about how Pi’s story may end imperfectly because of the bungled farewell.
❑ Martel rescues that imperfection by telling the story in exactly one hundred
chapters as Pi challenged to reader to do, to “conclude things properly.”
❑ Richard Parker is gone.
❑ He disappears and no one can prove his existence, yet his presence kept Pi alive.
❑ No one can prove God’s existence, yet His presence kept Pi alive.
❑ Pi assures the reader that God is not gone because the beach “was like the cheek
of God, and somewhere two eyes were glittering with pleasure and a mouth was
smiling at having Pi there.”

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1. Why does Pi and Richard Parker’s parting bother Pi so much?
For 227 days, Pi has essentially kept Richard Parker alive, providing him
with food and drinking water. He “tamed” Richard Parker to the extent that
the tiger accepted him as the Alpha male in their little streak of two. (A group
of tigers is called either a “streak” or an “ambush.”) It, therefore, bothers Pi
that Richard Parker is able to run off with no sense of farewell or gratitude –
no emotion that would be appropriate at a human parting.

2. Why, according to Pi, is it important to “conclude things properly”?

Pi says that it is only by “concluding things properly” that one can let go of
them. Not to conclude something properly will be to forever live with regret.

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3. Why does Pi say he turned to God after leaving the island?
He says that people naturally turn to God in the depths of despair.
The apparently fruit-bearing tree in the center also supports this
interpretation.
When the tree’s “fruit,” however, turns out to be curled leaves with
human teeth in the center, the entire nature of the island changes in
Pi’s perception, and he flees.
This Eden, then, is tainted, illusory.
After everything Pi has experienced on the lifeboat, he cannot return
to a state of innocence at all resembling what he knew in his home in
India.

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 PART THREE
Benito Juarez Infirmary, Tomatlan, Mexico

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CHAPTER 95
• As Part 3 begins the visiting writer introduces Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba.
• They are the officials in the Japanese Ministry of Transport who were informed
of Pi's arrival as the single survivor of the Tsimtsum.
• The officials plan to drive from California to Tomatlán, Mexico, to meet Pi.
• But Mr. Okamoto misreads the map and mistakenly drives to Tomat, a
Californiatown.
• The officials take 41 hours to travel to Tomatlán.
• Their car breaks down twice, and they're exhausted when they arrive.
• The visiting writer explains he's about to share the transcript from Mr. Okamoto
and Mr. Chiba's three-hour interview with Pi Patel.
• He'll print portions in a different font to indicate spokenJapanese.

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CHAPTER 96
• The Japanese men introduce themselves to Pi and explain that they want
information about the sinking of the Tsimtsum.
• They speak to each other on the side, in Japanese.
• Politely, they tell Pi that they had a good trip.
• Pi says that his trip was terrible.
• The men give Pi, who is always hungry now, a cookie and they begin the interview.

❑ Mr Chiba addresses Mr. Okamoto as “Okamoto-san,” a term of respect,

indicating that Chiba is an underling.
❑ “Okamoto” is a brand of Japanese condoms, making the reader wonder if
Martel’s Okamoto is going to “protect” his department from Pi’s story.

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1. Why have members of the Japanese Ministry of Transport come
to interview Pi?
Since the Tsimtsum was a Japanese ship, it is the responsibility of the
Japanese government to investigate the accident that caused it to sink.
They have come to record Pi’s account of what happened to the ship.

2. What is significant about the numerous difficulties the Japanese

men experience in their attempt to get to Pi and interview him? What
do we learn about them in their private exchanges in Japanese that
the author includes in his transcript?
The men themselves seem incompetent in their attempt to read the map,
negotiate with car rental companies and auto mechanics, and find their
way to Pi. This mirrors the incompetence Pi notes in the crew of the
Tsimtsum. Their responses to Pi’s requests for food and their
preoccupation with their own hunger suggest that they are oblivious to Pi’s
condition or the nature of the ordeal he has endured.
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CHAPTER 97
❑ “The story.”

❑ The survivor Pi tells the same story to the Japanese men that the
adult Pi told the author.

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CHAPTER 98
• Mr Okamoto and Mr Chiba request a break.
• Pi requests another cookie.
• Aside, in Japanese, the men indicate that they think Pi’s story is crazy.
• They note that Pi is hoarding the cookies they gave him under his sheets.
• They humour him with another cookie, and then excuse themselves from the room.
❑ Pi’s food hoarding behaviour seems eccentric, if not mad. Pi has reacted to his new
“abundance” of food by stocking up in everything, as he is still in survival mode.
❑ It is easy for the Japanese men to disbelieve his story.
❑ However, having been a castaway for over seven months, stashing food is merely a
habit for Pi.
❑ The officials act like the religious agnostics. Pi dislikes their response, demanding “dry,
yeastless factuality” instead of Pi’s fascinating but improbable story. 117
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1. What is the purpose of Chapter 97?
We already know that the author, at Pi’s request, is trying to write his book,
tell Pi’s story, in exactly one hundred chapters. This is a tactic to make that
happen. It is evidence of the story’s being crafted for effect rather than
related for the sake of its factual accuracy.

2. What element has Martel reintroduced into the novel by presenting

translations of the interviewers’ Japanese side remarks in his
transcript of Pi’s interview?
The interviewers’ side comments, which Pi presumably cannot understand
because the men are speaking to each other in Japanese, bring some
humor back into the novel. The men express their hunger, their disbelief,
their wish that they had taken the day off, all in contrast to the seriousness
of their official business and the horrors of Pi’s story.
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3. What types of characters are the two interviewers?
In the way they conduct their business and their reactions to Pi’s tale, the
interviewers are both clowns and foils for Pi.

4. Why do you suppose Pi hoards the cookies?

Pi has experienced severe privation and been on the point of
starvation numerous times in the past seven months. He has learned
to hoard food while it is plentiful so that he can survive on the
reserves when food becomes scarce.

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CHAPTER 99
• When the men return, they tell Pi that they do not believe his story.
• Pi asks why not.
• Their first argument is that bananas do not float.
• Pi produces two bananas from somewhere in his bed and insists that
they try it for themselves in the sink.
• The bananas float.
• Their second argument is the impossibility of the floating carnivorous
island with meerkats.

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• Pi counters that Venus flytraps would seem impossible, as would the
bonsai trees that Mr Chiba brings up in the conversation, if one had
never seen them.

• Their third argument is the missing tiger.

• Pi explains instances of wild animals that escaped into civilization and

were never found.

• Pi is angry at the men for denying his story just because it is “hard to
believe.”

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• Mr Chiba produces a chocolate bar to distract Pi from his anger.

• The men comment aside that Pi has stolen their entire lunch.

• Mr Okamoto tries to redirect the conversation to facts about the

sinking of the ship. Pi is not deterred.

• The discussion continues with additional objections and counters.

• Again Mr. Okamoto tries to redirect the conversation to the sinking

of the ship, something Pi will never forget.

• They converse idly to relieve the tension.

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• Mr Chiba produces a chocolate bar to distract Pi from his anger.

• The men comment aside that Pi has stolen their entire lunch.

• Mr Okamoto tries to redirect the conversation to facts about the

sinking of the ship. Pi is not deterred.

• The discussion continues with additional objections and counters.

• Again Mr. Okamoto tries to redirect the conversation to the sinking

of the ship, something Pi will never forget.

• They converse idly to relieve the tension.

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• Pi irritably agrees to tell the men “a story that won’t surprise you.

• That will confirm what you already know.

• That won’t make you see higher or further or differently...dry, yeastless factuality.”

• Pi tells them a story without animals.

• In the SECOND STORY, there was a French cook, a sailor with a broken leg, and Pi’s mother on the
lifeboat.

• The cook amputates the sailor’s leg, and then when the sailor dies, butchers and eats him.

• Pi and his mother are aghast.

• Sometime later, after a heated argument, the cook kills Pi’s mother, tossing her head into Pi’s lap.

• The next day, Pi kills the cook.

• This is when he turns to God to survive.

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• Mr Okamoto points out to Mr Chiba, in Japanese, the similarities
and analogies between Pi’s two stories.

• They don’t know what to make of it.

• They press Pi for information about the crew and the actual
sinking.

• Pi is annoyed and speaks scornfully of the crew and the officers.

• They discuss the technicalities of the shipwreck.

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• Since both stories have basically the same outcomes, the ship sinks and
Pi loses everything, Pi asks the men which story they prefer.

• The men agree that the story with the animals is the better story.

• Pi replies, “Thank you.

• And so it goes with God.” He cries.

• The men thank Pi and leave commenting that they will try to avoid
Richard Parker.

• “He’s hiding somewhere you’ll never find him,” is Pi’s response.

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• Pi’s description of the cookies which “are good but they tend to crumble,”
could well be Mr. Okamoto’s description of Pi’s story.

• It is a good story but Okamoto’s perception of reality causes it to crumble.

• However, each objection the men present is argued against logically by Pi.

• Yet even with logical support for his story, Pi cautions against being overly
reasonable or “you risk throwing out the universe with the bathwater.”

• This alludes to the saying “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” which
warns one not to eliminate everything when it is only part that needs to be
disposed of.

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• Pi’s second story of cannibalism, but no animals has parallels to the first.

• The zebra and the sailor both have a broken leg and are attacked, scream at first
but die silently, and are then eaten.

• Orange Juice, the orangutan, and Pi’s mother both have two sons, and both are
decapitated after a screaming and slapping the assailant.

• The hyena and the French cook both kill and eat a male (the zebra or sailor) and a
female (the orangutan or Pi’s mother).

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• The French castaway also admits to killing and eating a man and a
woman.

• That leaves Richard Parker and Pi.

• They both kill the animal/person that had killed and eaten the others.

• The Japanese men assume that Pi has made up the story of the
animals because the other story is too unbearable.

• There is no Richard Parker; Pi is the tiger.

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• Pi tells Mr Okamoto that Richard Parker is “hiding somewhere you’ll
never find him.”

• This could mean that the tiger is deep in the jungle, or it could mean
that Pi, who admitted to becoming animal-like during his ordeal, has
buried his cannibalistic killer side deep inside himself forever.

• The reader is left to choose which story to believe.

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• Reason would prompt belief in the second story.

• Heart would choose the first.

• Choosing the first story requires faith in the divine and so this
story may after all “make you believe in God.”

• Pi tells Mr Okamoto and Mr Chiba that, like them, God prefers the
better story.

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1. What point about how people live their lives does Pi make when
Okamoto asks why no one else has ever seen the island of algae?
Pi says that most people travel too quickly to notice things. He was
traveling slow and saw everything.

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2. Thematically, what is the significance of the rapid and witty exchange
between Pi and Mr. Okamoto about the truth of Pi’s story? What
viewpoints are represented by Pi and the interviewers?
• This exchange gets at the nature of truth and humankind’s ambivalent search
for it.
• Pi equates the interviewers’ disbelief with the disbelief of those who doubted
Copernicus and Darwin because those scientists proposed ideas that
contradicted what was currently “known.”
• When Mr. Okamoto insists that the floating island of algae contradicts the
laws of nature, Pi counters by questioning whether Okamoto honestly thinks
the laws of nature are already absolutely known.
• In this exchange, Pi represents the philosopher or scientist always struggling
to push beyond the boundaries of what is known to discover what is not yet
known. The interviewers represent the complacent masses who believe there
is nothing new to be discovered.
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3. How does Pi defend the story of his survival when Mr. Okamoto
challenges it as unbelievable? What is his response when Mr.
Okamoto protests that he believes only what he sees?

Pi points out that other things, like love and the existence of God, are also
hard to believe. Pi also reminds Mr.
Okamoto that Christopher Columbus also believed only what he saw –
he’d landed on a continent previously unknown to Europeans, and he
thought he had to be on land that was known.
Pi asks Okamoto what he does in the dark when he sees nothing. Does
he then believe nothing?

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4. If we accept the Richard Parker story as an allegorical account of the factual,
literal story, what do each of the characters in the allegory represent?
• The zebra represents the Chinese sailor. In the first story, the zebra has a broken
leg.
• In the second, the Chinese sailor has a broken leg.
The hyena is the French cook.
• In the first version of Pi’s story, the hyena is hideous, in appearance and in action.
• This is what Pi thinks of the cook.
• The hyena kills the zebra by biting off his leg.
• The cook cuts off the leg of the Chinese sailor, killing him.
• The orangutan is Pi’s mother. Just as the orangutan slaps the hyena, so Pi’s
mother slaps the French cook.
• Later, as the orangutan and the hyena fight on the lifeboat, so do Pi’s mother and
the cook; and, as the hyena eventually kills the orangutan, the cook kills Pi’s
mother.
• Finally, the tiger, Richard Parker, represents the animal part of Pi himself.
• Pi kills the cook because the cook killed Pi’s mother.
• Then, because he is starving, he eats the cook. In the first story, Richard Parker
kills and eats the hyena. 138
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5. Why do Mr. Okamoto and Mr. Chiba say they think the story with the
animals is the better story, even though they admit they do not believe it?
There are a couple of possible reasons. First of all, the story with the animals is a
better “story.” As Pi says, it is surprising, exciting, at times heartwarming, and is at
least partially true. Secondly, if the second story is the factual account, they too
may feel that the facts are too horrible to examine directly, so the first story is
“better.”

6. What is ironic about the presence of the interviewers in this novel? Why
did Martel include them?
First, the Japanese men represent a rational corporate interest that has nothing to
do with what happened to Pi.
They believe that Pi’s reluctance to talk about what happened is the result of his
fear of legal action being taken against him!
Second, they are most interested in the part of the story about which Pi know the
least and about which he is least interested.

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CHAPTER 100
• Mr Okamoto submits his report explaining that the cause of the sinking of the ship
cannot be determined.
• In an end comment he adds that Mr Patel’s story is one of tragedy and courage,
for no one else has survived at sea “in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.”

❑ In the end, despite using words such as “unreliable,” “speculation,” and

“conjecture,” it is apparent that Mr Okamoto has chosen “the better story.”

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1. Why does Martel never explain the cause of the ship’s sinking?
Ultimately, in terms of the story, the cause of the shipwreck is irrelevant.
Neither version of the story—nor the truth that underlies each—would be
altered by knowing the cause.

2. What is interesting about the fact that this book ends at Chapter
100?
Earlier in the book, Pi asked the author if he could write a book in exactly
one hundred chapters. This, to Pi, would represent closure, finality.

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3. Why is it significant to the theme that the unnamed author learns
of Pi’s second story from the Japanese interviewers?
Pi’s truth is still the story of Richard Parker. Were it not for Mr.
Okamoto’s letter to the author, the reader probably would not even
consider the possibility that there might be a second version.

4. What is suggested by the closing line of Mr. Okamoto’s letter to

the author?
While, on the surface, it might seem that Okamoto has finally learned to
recognize the validity of the Richard Parker version of Pi’s story, his
word choice indicates otherwise: “Very few castaways can claim to have
survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an
adult Bengal tiger.” The fact of Pi’s being at sea for 227 days is not
questioned. The idea of his being at sea with a tiger still is.

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 BELIEVE THE UNBELIEVABLE

THE END
OF

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