Life of Pi is set against the tumultuous period of Indian history known as the Emergency. We hear more and more about Indira Gandhi and the worsening of the political situation in India. Life of Pi began in the wide-open spaces of childhood – in Pi's heady exploration of science and religion. This is the place where the Patel family first has it’s zoo. Place: Pi’s childhood Pondicherry, India.

Although the richer story may not line up with the factual events, it often communicates our humanness in a way the straight facts never could. In essence, there's no such thing as a single true story. stories) have replaced reality itself.) Martel wants to stress how humans create our own 'realities,' as well as how religion, or fiction, often tells the more attractive story. (We mean 'postmodern' in this sense: that versions of reality (e.g. This, friends, is a very postmodern move. *Martel allows Pi to relate the 'real' version of events at the end of novel. Like the random French castaway Pi meets near the end. *In Magical Realism, the author retains a basic level of realism – a lifeboat, hunger, animal instinct – but inserts fantastical elements. Genre: Allegory, fable, adventure, magical realism, postmodernism

Ideas, people, religions – anything with the spark of life – all follow, to some degree, the pattern of messiness and depravity and hope in Martel's novel. Meaning, the story doesn't limit itself to Pi. In the title, Martel reminds us both of the continuity of life and the openness of Pi's story. Pi himself might not be immortal, but his story is. That would have denoted a single life.' ( Jennie Renton, 'Yann Martel Interview') And so I didn't make the title The Life of Pi: I deliberately left out the definite article. But why isn’t it called ‘the life of Pi’? There's also the glorious Parisian swimming pool, the Piscine Molitor, which apparently made a lasting impression on Pi's uncle, Mamaji. For starters, there's π, the 'elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe' (1.5.41). Pi's name has a few rich associations in the novel. Explanation: The title, of course, refers to our protagonist Pi, whose full name is Piscine Molitor Patel.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel