Characters in Life of Pi
- Piscine Patel (Pi) – The main character and narrator of the story in the novel, Pi is a teenage Indian boy. His father ran a zoo and he practices three major religions – Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The knowledge his father gives him about animals is key to his surviving in a lifeboat with Richard Parker, the 400 pound Tiger.
- Richard Parker – The 450 pound tiger and 227 day companion to Pi on the lifeboat, Richard Parker becomes not only Pi’s arch nemesis, but his closest friend and only reason to stay alive on the boat. Often taking on numerous human characteristics, Richard Parker is an ambiguous silent character throughout the novel.
- The Author – Only present as a voice in the first Chapter (directly) the author here is a narrator as well as a man seeking a story, which he finds in Pi. He later describes bits of Pi’s life as well as interacting with the adult Pi as he tells the story.
- Francis Adirubasamy - A close friend of the Patel family and a world class swimmer, it is Francis who is responsible for Pi’s name as well as sending the author to Toronto to hear Pi’s story.
- Pi’s Father – A zookeeper with strong political views and a habit of teaching his son all that he can about animals and their psychology. He dies after the ship sinks.
- Pi’s Mother – A caring woman and a natural educator, Pi’s mother reads a lot and shares what she can with her son. In Pi’s first story she dies on the boat. In his second, she is one of the survivors who eventually die on the boat.
- Ravi – Pi’s brother who becomes everything that Pi is not, popular and athletic. They are very close before he dies in the shipwreck.
- Satish Kumar' – Pi’s biology teacher and a masterful scientist who teaches Pi much of his thirst for knowledge. He is a natural atheist and teaches Pi the faith of an atheist as well as the desire to study zoology in college.
- Mr. Satish Kumar (Sufi) – The other Satish Kumar is a shopkeeper in the Muslim part of town and introduces Pi to Islam.
- Father Martin – A catholic priest who introduces Pi to Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith. They meet often and talk of Christ’s works, breeding in Pi the desire to accept multiple faiths.
- Tomohiro Okamoto and Atsuro Chiba – The two men from the Japanese Ministry of Transport who arrive on behalf of the Tsimtsum sinking to question Pi about his story of survival. They do not immediately believe him but consent to writing his story up in their report.
Setting
At the beginning of the novel, Pi remembers his childhood in Pondicherry with fondness and a sense of peace and fascination at living in a zoo. However, the reality for Indians at this time was a far different one from the imagined world of Pi.
Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India at this time and she enacted several controversial decisions. This period of time came to be called the Indian Emergency because it was a period of time in which the Constitution of the country was suspended and police were given extraordinary powers such as the arrest and detention of political activists and curfews upon the population.
The entire opposition party was arrested and private and public media forms were used as political propaganda. Many slums were cleared, leaving great sections of the population homeless and men underwent forced vasectomies as part of a ‘family planning’ program. It was these leadership decisions that lead to Pi’s father deciding to leave the country and take the Patel family to Canada
Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister of India at this time and she enacted several controversial decisions. This period of time came to be called the Indian Emergency because it was a period of time in which the Constitution of the country was suspended and police were given extraordinary powers such as the arrest and detention of political activists and curfews upon the population.
The entire opposition party was arrested and private and public media forms were used as political propaganda. Many slums were cleared, leaving great sections of the population homeless and men underwent forced vasectomies as part of a ‘family planning’ program. It was these leadership decisions that lead to Pi’s father deciding to leave the country and take the Patel family to Canada