Life Of Pi Narrative Structure

Life of Pi – Chapter Overview and Narrative Structure Author’s note PART 1: Toronto and Pondicherry 1) Pi’s school experiences, sloths and Richard Parker introduced 2) Narrator describes Pi 3) Pissing Piscine and swimming pools 4) The Zoo and freedom 5) Pi’s naming 6) Narrator describes Pi’s kitchen and culinary skill 7) Satish Kumar the biology teacher, Science, God and Agnosticism 8) Cruelty to animals and father’s ‘lesson’ of the tigers 9) The key to successful zookeeping 10) The ‘instinct’ to escape 11) Escapee wild animals in society 12) The narrator suffers the spicy food Pi serves him 13) Alpha male pack leadership and training animals 14) The Omega animal 15) Narrator describes Pi’s home full of eclectic religious iconography 16) The birth of Pi’s religious sensibilities and Hinduism 17) Pi’s Introduction to Christianity 18) Pi’s introduction to Islam 19) Islam continued 20) Islam continued and the meeting of Satish Kumar the baker 21) Narrator’s metaphysical musings after an afternoon with Pi 22) Atheists and agnostics on the deathbed 23) ‘Interfaith dialogue’ 24) Ravi’s teasing 25) The hypocrisy of religious zealots 26) Pi asks for baptism and a prayer mat – one passport for heaven 27) Pi’s parents fret over their son’s religious convictions 28) Pi and prayer 29) Why people relocate 30) The narrator meets Pi’s wife 31) The Kumars meet at the zoo 32) Zoomorphism 33) The narrator looks over Pi’s photograph collection 34) The Patel’s prepare to move to Canada and animal trading 35) The departure 36) The narrator meets the rest of Pi’s family – a ‘happy ending’ PART 2: The Pacific Ocean 37) The sinking of the Tsimtsum and saving Richard Parker 38) Flashback to the voyage on the Tsimtsum and Pi’s escape 39) Flashback to the zebra and the lifeboat 40) Richard Parker, sharks and hanging on the oar 41) The wounded zebra and the hyena 42) Orange Juice joins the lifeboat 43) The hysteria of the hyena 44) The first night on the lifeboat 45) Dawn, the eating of the zebra’s leg, O.J.’s seasickness and the turtle 46) The second night and the killing of the zebra 47) The death of Orange Juice 48) How Richard Parker got his name 49) Day 3, thirst and the search for water 50) The dimensions of the lifeboat

51) Water and emergency rations 52) The survival kit list 53) The death of the hyena and the improvised raft 54) 6 Plans to deal with the problem of Richard Parker 55) Day 4 and the flaw in plan 6 56) The nature of fear 57) Prusten and the birth of the Indio-Canadian Trans-Pacific floating circus (Plan no. 7) 58) The survival manual 59) Cockroaches, solar stills and the green city of fish 60) Awe at the vastness of the ocean and man’s insignificance 61) Fishing with a shoe and the flying fish 62) Solar stills and the close of the first week 63) Daily routines 64) Nakedness and boils 65) Drifting 66) Advanced fishing techniques and turtles 67) The boat as part of the oceanic ecosystem 68) The sleeping pattern of small boys and Richard Parker 69) Flares 70) Turtle blood and butchery 71) How to carve out your territory with a whistle in 9 steps 72) The five shields and early training 73) The longing for books and the diary 74) Keeping faith 75) Pi sings ‘Happy Birthday’ for his mother 76) Constipation and playing with Richard Parker’s faeces 77) Pi is reduced to eating anything available including Richard Parker’s faeces 78) Many skies, many seas and the struggle of opposites 79) The shark attack and Richard Parker 80) The dorado and the staring match 81) The secret of Pi’s survival 82) The ongoing struggle for water and food 83) The storm, the loss of the raft and the last of the whistles 84) The whale and the seabirds 85) Lightning 86) The oil tanker 87) The dream rag 88) Trash and a message in a bottle 89) Perishing exposure and the last diary entry 90) Blindness, the voice and ‘the terrible cost of Richard Parker’ 91) Vision returns and Pi resorts to cannibalism 92) The Algae Island 93) Turning to God 94) Reaching Land PART 3: Benito Juarez Infirmary, Tomatlan Mexico 95) Narrator introduces the transcribed interview to follow 96) The interview with the Japanese Ministry of Transport officials 97) ‘The Story’ 98) The interviewers’ doubt 99) The other story 100) Mr Okamoto’s final report