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The struggles of surviving in the middle of nowhere, on a raft with hungry animals, is seen through the eyes of Piscine Patel. However, what inspired Yann Martel to write this story? According to a quick Q & A section with the author, on ABC News, Martel came up with all of these characters through puns. Martel takes total different things to connect them, from an irrational number to a swimming pool. "Pi... is an irrational number...I thought religion was like that too: It's something "irrational" that helps make sense of things...A swimming pool ("piscine" in French)is a rectangular volume of water..."(ABC News). The setting of the story begins in India, then Canada, which connects to the author because Martel has travelled to those places. I assume Martel also wrote this book because he was inspired by different arts or books, and taking bits and pieces of his travel experiences, he connects them to the main character of the book, Piscine Patel.
In the book, "The Life of Pi", Pi tells the reader two stories. He uses the animal version, in which the reader is currently reading and a more ideal version that displays human horror to the audience. I believe that the author is supposedly representing Pi, not because having a connection of a tragedy, but more of the perspective that both of them, Pi and Martel share. Notice: Pi's last name, Patel, is quite similar to Martel. Martel explains why he made Pi opened up towards three different religions. This was because Martel also opened up to any religion. "Pi is interested in religions: so am I. Pi is open to all faiths: so am I. Pi is comfortable in different Godhouses: so am I." (ABC News). Martel represents Pi and Pi represents the tiger in his story because of the actions they did, but this gets pretty confusing.
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