Transcript Yann Martel published his Life of Pi in 2001. He came to Phoenix in 2004, He said his goal was to entice and.

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Yann Martel published his Life of
Pi in 2001.
He came to Phoenix in 2004, He said his goal was to entice
and made several speeches. people away from their preconceived ideas of the world.
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Yann Martel’s Life of Pi
• Won Britain’s Booker Prize.
• Was our state’s 2004 OneBook Arizona.
• Was on the New York Times
best seller list for several
months.
• In 2012 was made into a
major motion picture.
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In discussing prototype theory, Linguist George Lakoff
points to two kinds of language: Straight and Playful,
for which he uses the terms prototypical and marked.
Linguist Del Hymes has explained
that Marked Language is used to
communicate extra information
about the Setting, Participants,
Ends, Act-Sequences, Key (tone or
mood), Instrumentalities (singing,
chanting…), Norms (expectations),
and Genres. Martel’s names are
marked in that they carry “extra”
information that lends power to the
story.
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Pi’s father was the manager of the Zoo in Pondicherry,
India so we know that 16-year-old Pi has grown up
with animals and knows a lot about them, but still as
the story unfolds we have to engage in a “suspension
of disbelief.
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William Harmon and Hugh Holman define the “suspension of
disbelief” as the willingness to withhold questions about truth,
accuracy, or probability in a work. This willingness to suspend
doubt makes possible the temporary acceptance of an author’s
imaginative world. The Life of Pi is about this suspension of
disbelief as defined by literary critics, and also as it might be
used by religious scholars.
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LANGUAGE PLAY
• Martel’s Life of Pi is
filled with onomastic
language play.
• This language play
allows Martel to be
symbolic, ironic,
metaphorical,
sarcastic, and satirical.
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How Pi Got His Name, PISCINE
MOLITOR PATEL
• As an interesting example of marked language, Martel
starts this survival-at-sea story with a water-related
story of how Pi got his name.
• Pi explains, “I was named after a swimming pool. Quite
peculiar considering my parents never took to water.”
(pages 11-12) (Note the foreshadowing.)
• Mamaji, Pi’s father’s business partner and friend of the
family, was a world class swimming champion, and his
favorite swimming pool was the Piscine Molitor in Paris
where he had competed in the Olympics.
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• In school, Piscine had trouble with his strange
name. Some people thought that he was an Indian
Sikh by the name of “P. Singh.”
• Pi’s classmates called him Pissing Patel, and they
would ask “Where’s Pissing? I’ve got to go,” or they
would say, “You’re facing the wall. Are you
Pissing?”
• After these taunts, “the sound would disappear, but
the hurt would linger, like the smell of piss long
after it has evaporated.”
• Even the teachers would forget to use his full name
and would call on him with “Yes, Pissing” (p. 20-23).
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• This lasted through all the years at St.
Joseph’s elementary school.
• On the first day at Petit Séminaire (high
school), when it came time for each student
to announce his name, Piscine went to the
chalkboard and wrote:
•
•
•
•
MY NAME IS
PISCINE MOLITOR PATEL,
KNOWN TO ALL AS
PI PATEL(Martel 20-23).
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For good measure, he added
π
= 3.14
• Then he drew a large circle and sliced it in
two “with a diameter to evoke the basic
lesson of geometry.” (pp. 20-23)
• Pi’s older brother teased him for being so
fond of yellow that he changed his name to
Lemon Pie.
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NAMES to allude to whole belief systems
• As part of the religious theme in the book, Pi tells readers
about Mr. Kumar, “the first avowed atheist” Pi knew. He
was one of Pi’s teachers and would come to visit the
Pondicherry Zoo so he could admire the animals, and view
nature as “a triumph of logic and mechanics” (p.25)
• To Mr. Kumar’s ears, when an animal felt the urge to mate, it
said “Gregor Mendel,” recalling the father of genetics, and
when it was time to show its mettle, “Charles Darwin,” the
father of natural selection, and what we took to be bleating,
grunting, hissing, snoring, roaring, growling, howling,
chirping and screeching were but the thick accents of
foreigners (p. 26).
• Pi’s other favorite teacher was also named Mr. Kumar, so
throughout the book readers smile when Pi alludes to “Mr.
and Mr. Kumar.”
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The Family’s Grand Adventure
• Pi’s father decides the family should emigrate
to Canada.
• So Pi, his parents, his older brother Ravi, and
the most valuable of the zoo animals prepare
to sail across the Pacific Ocean aboard the
Tsimtsum, a Panamaniaan-registered
Japanese cargo ship.
• Again Martel uses names to indicate the
mother’s hesitation just before boarding.
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Names Connected to India
• Pi’s mother, dressed in her most beautiful sari, is
sad to be leaving India. She points to a cigarette
wallah and earnestly asks, “Should we get a pack or
two?”
• Her husband, responds, “They have tobacco in
Canada, And why do you want to buy cigarettes?
We don’t smoke” (p. 90-91).
• Martel regularly used Indian (marked) names as a
reminder that he is telling a story about a family
from Pondicherry, India.
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• Pi wistfully explains: “Yes, they have
tobacco in Canada—but do they have
Gold Flake cigarettes? Do they have Arun
ice cream? Are the bicycles Heroes? Are
the televisions Onidas? Are the cars
Ambassadors? Are the bookshops
Higginbothams?”
• Such… were the questions that swirled in
Pi’s Mother’s mind as she contemplated
buying cigarettes (Martel 90-91).
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But Alas, the family doesn’t make it to Canada.
The great ship sinks into the Pacific with “a
sound like a great metallic burp.
• Pi had been awake and so made it to a life
boat.
• From the lifeboat Pi saw something, and
cried, “Richard Parker, is that you? It’s so
hard to see. Oh, that this rain would stop!
Richard Parker? Richard Parker? Yes, it is
you!”
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The Arrival of RICHARD PARKER
• Pi is a Christian, but he is also a Muslim and a Hindu, and
when he first sees Richard Parker, he shouts “Jesus, Mary,
Muhammad and Vishnu, how good to see you, Richard
Parker!”
• “I could see his head. He was struggling to stay at the
surface of the water…. He had seen me. He looked panicstricken. He started swimming my way. The water about
him was shifting wildly. He looked small and helpless.”
• “Richard Parker, can you believe what has happened to us?
Tell me it’s a bad dream. Tell me it’s not real. Tell me I’m
still in my bunk on the Tsimtsum… and I’ll soon wake up
from this nightmare.” (p. 97).
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Pi suddenly realizes that he does not want to share his future with
Richard Parker even though Richard Parker is the only familiar thing Pi
sees swimming in the water.
Richard Parker is a 450 pound Bengal Tiger. By the time Pi
comprehends what this means, he has already thrown out a life buoy
and the tiger is pulling himself onto the boat, and so begins the “real”
survival story.
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How Richard Parker Got His Name
• Richard Parker was named as the result of a clerical
error. A panther had been terrorizing the Khulna
district of Bangladesh. Among those searching for
him was a hunter named Richard Parker.
• He came upon a tiger and its cub, which he took to
the train station for delivery to the Pondicherry zoo.
The shipping clerk was so befuddled by all the
commotion that he mistakenly filled in the blanks
to show that the tiger cub’s name was Richard
Parker, the hunter’s first name was Thirsty, while his
family name was None Given (Martel 90-91).
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Orange Juice, A More Welcome Survivor comes
floating in on a great bunch of bananas.
• In his excitement, Pi cries
“Oh blessed Great
Mother, Pondicherry
fertility goddess,
provider of milk and
love, wondrous arm
spread of comfort, terror
of ticks, picker-up of
crying ones, are you to
witness this tragedy
too?”
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Pi, tries to train Richard Parker so that they can share the
lifeboat, but first he has to make himself a separate
floating device, while he figures out an ingenious way to
manage the training.
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THE PI PATEL, INDO-CANADIAN, TRANSPACIFIC, FLOATING CIRCUUUUUSSSSSSSSSS!!!
• After a rainstorm has left water in the
bottom of the boat, Pi cautiously dips his
beaker into what he calls “Parker’s Pond,”
and feels terribly threatened.
• Then he decides that the only way he can
survive on his strange “Noah’s Ark,” is to train
Richard Parker as though he were a circus
animal, so Pi goes through the patter of a
barker welcoming his imaginary audience to
“THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH,” hence the
new name for his life boat (p. 165).
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The hungrier Pi gets (eating only 2 biscuits
every 8 hours) the more exaggerated became
his dreams of food.
“The less I had to eat, the
larger became the portions I
dreamed of. My fantasy
meals grew to be the size of
India. A Ganges of Dhad
soup. Hot chapattis the size
of Rajasthan. Bowls of rice as
big as Uttar Pradesh.
Sambars to flood all of Tamil
Nadu. Ice cream heaped as
high as the Himalayas.”
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Pi even names the whales that pass by:
BAMPHOO, MUMPHOO, TOMPHOO AND
STIMPHOO
He imagines what they are saying to each other:
“Oh! It’s that castaway with the pussy cat, Bamphoo
was telling me about. Poor boy. Hope he has enough
plankton. I must tell Mumphoo and Tomphoo and
Stimphoo about him. I wonder if there isn’t a ship
around I could alert. His mother would be very happy
to see him again. Goodybye, my boy. I’ll try to help.
My name’s Pimphoo.
And so through the grapevine, every whale of the
Pacific knew of me” (p. 230).
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More Name Play
• Later in the book, when Pi is rescued and finally makes it to
Canada, he tells his foster mother, a Québécoise, about Hare
Krishnas . She misheard and thought they were “Hairless
Christians.”
• Pi explained that in fact she was not so wrong. Hindus, in
their capacity for love are indeed hairless Christians, just as
Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded
Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hatwearing Muslims (p. 50).
• Years later when Pi is an adult in Canada and orders a pizza,
he doesn’t have the strength of explain his name and so
answers the phone request with “I am who I am.” The pizza
comes delivered to Ian Houlihan.
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At the end of the novel, Pi is using the pen and the
notebook he found in the survival kit to take stock of
what he has on the boat. Here is his list.
• 1 boy with a complete
set of light clothing but
• 1 first-aid kit in a
for one lost shoe
waterproof plastic case
• 1 signaling mirror
• 1 Bengal tiger
• 1 pack of filter-tipped
Chinese cigarettes
• 1 lifeboat
• 1 ocean
• 1 compass
• 1 God
(p. 146).
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As to “the truth” of the story maybe we can’t
choose until we’ve walked in Pi’s shoes.
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Life of Pi Web Sites:
Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Hjrs6WQ8M
Screen Rant about Ending:
http://screenrant.com/life-of-pi-movie-ending-spoilers/
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