Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Hours by Michael Cunningham

The Hours

Listen to Michael Cunningham read the prologue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNsXHDPWTE

Watch the opening of the film.


Research Virginia Woolf and Michael Cunningham links.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izNsXHDPWTE

Continue reading to pg. 48.


From wikipedia

Mrs Dalloway (published on 14 May 1925) is a novel by Virginia Woolf that details a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post-World War I England. It is one of Woolf's best-known novels.
Created from two short stories, "Mrs Dalloway in Bond Street" and the unfinished "The Prime Minister", the novel's story is of Clarissa's preparations for a party of which she is to be hostess. With the interior perspective of the novel, the story travels forwards and back in time and in and out of the characters' minds to construct an image of Clarissa's life and of the inter-war social structure.

Plot summary

Clarissa Dalloway goes around London in the morning, getting ready to host a party that evening. The nice day reminds her of her youth at Bourton and makes her wonder about her choice of husband; she married the reliable Richard Dalloway instead of the enigmatic and demanding Peter Walsh and she "had not the option" to be with Sally Seton. Peter reintroduces these conflicts by paying a visit that morning.
Septimus Warren Smith, a veteran of World War I suffering from deferred traumatic stress, spends his day in the park with his Italian-born wife Lucrezia, where they are observed by Peter Walsh. Septimus is visited by frequent and indecipherable hallucinations, mostly concerning his dear friend Evans who died in the war. Later that day, after he is prescribed involuntary commitment to a psychiatric hospital, he commits suicide by jumping out of a window.
Clarissa's party in the evening is a slow success. It is attended by most of the characters she has met in the book, including people from her past. She hears about Septimus' suicide at the party and gradually comes to admire the act of this stranger, which she considers an effort to preserve the purity of his happiness.

Characters

Clarissa Dalloway The fifty-one-year-old ("She had just broken into her fifty-second year" p. 31) [1] protagonist of the novel. She is the wife of Richard and mother of Elizabeth. She spends the day organizing a party that will be held that night while also reminiscing about the past. She is self-conscious about her role in London high society.
Richard Dalloway The disconnected and haughty husband of Clarissa. He is immersed in his work in government.
Elizabeth Dalloway Seventeen-year-old daughter of Clarissa and Richard. She is said to look "oriental" and has great composure. Compared to her mother, she takes great pleasure in politics and modern history, hoping to be either a doctor or farmer in the future.
Septimus Warren Smith A World War I veteran who suffers from "shell shock" and hallucinations of his deceased friend, Evans. Educated and decorated in the war, he is detached from society. He is married to Lucrezia from whom he has grown distant.
Lucrezia "Rezia" Smith The Italian wife of Septimus. She is burdened by his mental illness and believes that she is judged because of it. During most of the novel she is homesick for family and country, which she left to marry Septimus after the Armistice.
Sally Seton A love interest of Clarissa. She had a strained relationship with her family and spent much time with Clarissa's family in her youth. Sally is married to Lord Rosseter and has five boys. She can be described as feisty as well as a youthful ragamuffin.
Hugh Whitbread The pompous friend of Clarissa. Like Clarissa, he places much importance on his place in society. He holds an unspecified position in the British Royal household. Although he believes himself to be an essential member of the British aristocracy, Lady Bourton, Clarissa, Richard, and Peter find him to be obnoxious.
Peter Walsh He is an old friend of Clarissa. In the past, she rejected his marriage proposal. Now he has returned to England from India and is one of the guests at Clarissa's party. He is planning to marry Daisy.
Sir William Bradshaw Septimus is referred to the famous psychiatrist, Sir William Bradshaw, by his physician, Dr. Holmes. Bradshaw notes that Septimus has had a complete nervous breakdown and suggests spending time in the country as a cure.
Miss Kilman Miss Kilman is Elizabeth's history teacher, who has a degree in history and was fired from a teaching job during the war. She has a German ancestry. She wears an unattractive mackintosh coat because she does not care enough to dress to please others. She is a born-again Christian. She dislikes Clarissa intensely but she loves to spend time with Elizabeth.

Style

In Mrs Dalloway, all of the action, except flashbacks, takes place on a day in June. It is an example of free indirect discourse storytelling (not stream of consciousness because this story moves between the consciousnesses of every character in a form of discourse): every scene closely tracks the momentary thoughts of a particular character. Woolf blurs the distinction between direct and indirect speech throughout the novel, alternating her narration with omniscient description, indirect interior monologue, direct interior narration follows at least twenty characters in this way but the bulk of the novel is spent with Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith.
Because of structural and stylistic similarities, Mrs Dalloway is commonly thought to be a response to James Joyce's Ulysses, a text that is often considered one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century (though Woolf herself, writing in 1928, apparently denied this[2]). In her essay 'Modern Fiction', Woolf praised James Joyce's Ulysses, saying of the scene in the cemetery, "on a first reading at any rate, it is difficult not to acclaim a masterpiece".[3] The Hogarth Press, run by her and her husband Leonard, had to turn down the chance to publish the novel in 1919, because of the obscenity law in England, as well as the practical issues regarding publishing such a substantial text.
Woolf laid out some of her literary goals with the characters of Mrs Dalloway while still working on the novel. A year before its publication, she gave a talk at Cambridge University called "Character in Fiction," revised and retitled later that year as "Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown."[4]

Themes

The novel has two main narrative lines involving two separate characters (Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith); within each narrative there is a particular time and place in the past that the main characters keep returning to in their minds. For Clarissa, the "continuous present" (Gertrude Stein's phrase) of her charmed youth at Bourton keeps intruding into her thoughts on this day in London. For Septimus, the "continuous present" of his time as a soldier during the Great War keeps intruding, especially in the form of Evans, his comrade.

Mental illness

Septimus, as the shell-shocked war hero, operates as a pointed criticism of the treatment of mental illness and depression.[5] Woolf lashes out at the medical discourse through Septimus' decline and suicide; his doctors make snap judgments about his condition, talk to him mainly through his wife and dismiss his urgent confessions before he can make them. Rezia remarks that Septimus "was not ill. Dr Holmes said there was nothing the matter with him".[6]
Woolf goes beyond criticizing the treatment of mental illness. Using the characters of Clarissa and Rezia, she makes the argument that people can only interpret Septimus' shell-shock according to their cultural norms.[7] Throughout the course of the novel Clarissa does not meet Septimus. Clarissa's reality is vastly different from that of Septimus; his presence in London is unknown to Clarissa until his death becomes idle chat at her party. By never having these characters meet, Woolf is suggesting that mental illness can be contained to the individuals who suffer from it without others who remain unaffected ever having to witness it.[8] This allows Woolf to weave her criticism of the treatment of the mentally ill with her larger argument, which is the criticism of society's class structure. Her use of Septimus as the stereotypically traumatized man from the war is her way of showing that there were still reminders of the First World War in 1923 London.[7] These ripples affect Mrs. Dalloway and readers spanning generations. Shell shock or post traumatic stress disorder is an important addition to the early 20th century canon of post-war British Literature.[9]
There are similarities in Septimus' condition to Woolf's struggles with bipolar disorder (they both hallucinate that birds sing in Greek and Woolf once attempted to throw herself out of a window as Septimus does).[5] Woolf eventually committed suicide by drowning.
Woolf's original plan for her novel called for Clarissa to kill herself during her party. In this original version, Septimus (whom Woolf called Mrs. Dalloway's "double") did not appear at all.[2]

Existential issues

When Peter Walsh sees a girl in the street and stalks her for half an hour, he notes that his relationship to the girl was "made up, as one makes up the better part of life." By focusing on characters' thoughts and perceptions, Woolf emphasizes the significance of private thoughts rather than concrete events in a person's life. Most of the plot in Mrs Dalloway is realizations that the characters subjectively make.[5]
Fueled by her bout of ill health, Clarissa Dalloway is emphasized as a woman who appreciates life. Her love of party-throwing comes from a desire to bring people together and create happy moments. Her charm, according to Peter Walsh who loves her, is a sense of joie de vivre, always summarized by the sentence "There she was." She interprets Septimus Smith's death as an act of embracing life and her mood remains light even though she hears about it in the midst of the party.

Feminism

As a commentary on inter-war society, Clarissa's character highlights the role of women as the proverbial "Angel in the House" and embodies sexual and economic repression and the narcissism of bourgeois women who have never known the hunger and insecurity of working women. She keeps up with and even embraces the social expectations of the wife of a patrician politician but she is still able to express herself and find distinction in the parties she throws.[5]
Her old friend Sally Seton, whom Clarissa admires dearly, is remembered as a great independent woman:[5] She smoked cigars, once ran down a corridor naked to fetch her sponge-bag and made bold, unladylike statements to get a reaction from people. When Clarissa meets her in the present day, she turns out to be a perfect housewife, having married a self-made rich man and given birth to five sons.

Homosexuality

Clarissa Dalloway is strongly attracted to Sally at Bourton — 34 years later, she still considers the kiss they shared to be the happiest moment of her life. She feels about women "as men feel",[10] but she does not recognize these feelings as signs of homosexuality.
Similarly, Septimus is haunted by the image of his dear friend Evans. Evans, his commanding officer, is described as being "undemonstrative in the company of women". The narrator describes Septimus and Evans behaving together like "two dogs playing on a hearth-rug" who, inseparable, "had to be together, share with each other, fight with each other, quarrel with each other..." Jean E. Kennard notes that the word "share" could easily be read in a Forsteran manner, perhaps as in Forster's Maurice which shows the word's use in this period to describe homosexual relations. Kennard is one to note Septimus' "increasing revulsion at the idea of heterosexual sex", abstaining from sex with Rezia and feeling that "the business of copulation was filth to him before the end."[11]


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

MultiGenre Project

Continue working on your project.

Continue working on Literary mag submissions.

Turn in project planner today for classwork credit.

Take some Life of Pi quizzes on Shmoop:

http://www.shmoop.com/life-of-pi/come-for-quiz-stay-for-pi-quiz.html

Monday, May 20, 2013

Life of Pi

Finish reading Life of Pi for Friday, May 24

"Meaning of Life" multigenre project due on Friday, May 24/Continue working on project in class

LITERARY MAGAZINE---Submit up to 4 pages of your writing for the literary magazine



Multigenre Project Planning Sheet

Overall Theme/Message you want to convey to your audience about your topic: __________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Important Information
about my topic that could help develop the theme of the MGP (brainstorming)
Possible Genres/Types of Writing
that would clearly communicate this message (make sure its authentic/believable)
Final Genre Choice



























Important Information
about my topic that could help develop the theme of the MGP (brainstorming)
Possible Genres/Types of Writing
that would clearly communicate this message (make sure its authentic/believable)
Final Genre Choice




































Important Information
about my topic that could help develop the theme of the MGP (brainstorming)
Possible Genres/Types of Writing
that would clearly communicate this message (make sure its authentic/believable)
Final Genre Choice




































1.  Only give genres are required.  At least ONE genre must be a longer piece of writing.  Go back through your planning sheet and highlight your final genre choices.

*Remember, this is just a plan.  Plans can always change as we become more invested in our project.  Stick to your plan and work hard to complete checkpoints on time.  This will ensure a successful and minimal stress project.  You can do this!!!


2.  After you have chose your 5 genres, brainstorm how you will put this project together.  How will it be presented for your audience?  For example, will you “package” your MGP as a CD, a scrapbook, a photo album, a patient file, an employee handbook, a manual, a newspaper, a suitcase, a newspaper, or even a magazine?  What method of presentation seems most appropriate for communicating your information?  Are you trying to make this information seem authentic/real as if it was found from this time era?  Consider how you might make it seem authentic.  Brainstorm or maybe even draw a picture below:














3.  Lastly, you have the option of creating an artistic representation of your theme/topic in place of one of your genres.  If you choose to do this, you will need to have an accompanying paragraph explaining its significance/what it is trying to convey, much like you could see a plaque next to a piece of art in a gallery.  It should also include the title of your piece.  Brainstorm below possible projects you could do for this.  In what way could you use art to convey the message you want your audience to receive?
 

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Meaning of Life

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?".[10] Some popular answers include:

To realize one's potential and ideals

  • To chase dreams.[135]
    To live one's dreams.[136]
  • To spend it for something that will outlast it.[137]
  • To matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.[137]
  • To expand one's potential in life.[136]
  • To become the person you've always wanted to be.[138]
  • To become the best version of yourself.[139]
  • To seek happiness[140][141] and flourish.[3]
  • To be a true authentic human being.[142]
  • To be able to put the whole of oneself into one's feelings, one's work, one's beliefs.[137]
  • To follow or submit to our destiny.[143][144][145]
  • To achieve eudaimonia,[146] a flourishing of human spirit.

To achieve biological perfection

To seek wisdom and knowledge

Philosopher in Meditation (detail) by Rembrandt
  • To expand one's perception of the world.[136]
  • To follow the clues and walk out the exit.[157]
  • To learn as many things as possible in life.[158]
    To know as much as possible about as many things as possible.[159]
  • To seek wisdom and knowledge and to tame the mind, as to avoid suffering caused by ignorance and find happiness.[160]
  • To face our fears and accept the lessons life offers us.[143]
  • To find the meaning or purpose of life.[161][162]
  • To find a reason to live.[163]
  • To resolve the imbalance of the mind by understanding the nature of reality.[164]

To do good, to do the right thing

  • To leave the world as a better place than you found it.[135]
    To do your best to leave every situation better than you found it.[135]
  • To benefit others.[6]
  • To give more than you take.[135]
  • To end suffering.[165][166][167]
  • To create equality.[168][169][170]
  • To challenge oppression.[171]
  • To distribute wealth.[172][173]
  • To be generous.[174][175]
  • To contribute to the well-being and spirit of others.[176]
  • To help others,[3][175] to help one another.[177]
    To take every chance to help another while on your journey here.[135]
  • To be creative and innovative.[176]
  • To forgive.[135]
    To accept and forgive human flaws.[178][179]
  • To be emotionally sincere.[137]
  • To be responsible.[137]
  • To be honorable.[137]
  • To seek peace.[137]
Dante and Beatrice see God as a point of light surrounded by angels; from Gustave Doré's illustrations for the Divine Comedy

Meanings relating to religion

  • To reach the highest heaven and be at the heart of the Divine.[180]
  • To have a pure soul and experience God.[137]
  • To understand the mystery of God.[143]
  • To know or attain union with God.[181][182]
  • To know oneself, know others, and know the will of heaven.[183]
  • To love something bigger, greater, and beyond ourselves, something we did not create or have the power to create, something intangible and made holy by our very belief in it.[135]
  • To love God[181] and all of his creations.[184]
  • To glorify God by enjoying him forever.[52][185]
  • To go and make new disciples of Jesus Christ.[186]
  • To act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.[187]
  • To be fruitful and multiply.[188] (Genesis 1:28)
  • To obtain freedom (Romans 8:20-21)
  • To fill the Earth and subdue it.[188] (Genesis 1:28)

To love, to feel, to enjoy the act of living

  • To love more.[135]
  • To love those who mean the most. Every life you touch will touch you back.[135]
  • To treasure every enjoyable sensation one has.[135]
  • To seek beauty in all its forms.[135]
  • To have fun or enjoy life.[143][176]
  • To seek pleasure[137] and avoid pain.[189]
  • To be compassionate.[137]
  • To be moved by the tears and pain of others, and try to help them out of love and compassion.[135]
  • To love others as best we possibly can.[135]

To seek pleasure

  • To eat, drink, and be merry.[190]

To have power, to be better

Life has no meaning

  • Life or human existence has no real meaning or purpose because human existence occurred out of a random chance in nature, and anything that exists by chance has no intended purpose.[164]
  • Life has no meaning, but as humans we try to associate a meaning or purpose so we can justify our existence.[135]
  • There is no point in life, and that is exactly what makes it so special.[135]

One should not seek to know and understand the meaning of life

  • The answer to the meaning of life is too profound to be known and understood.[164]
  • You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.[135]
  • The meaning of life is to forget about the search for the meaning of life.[135]
  • Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.[193]

Life is bad

Life of Pi and Postmodernism

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/11/21/life-of-pi-raises-the-ultimate-postmodern-question-of-faith/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eEOHulh7yc

http://prezi.com/pguby5de4mpt/post-modernism-life-of-pi/ 

http://www.questia.com/library/1G1-235281139/life-of-pi-as-postmodern-survivor-narrative

Postmodernism

A general and wide-ranging term which is applied to literature, art, philosophy, architecture, fiction, and cultural and literary criticism, among others. Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality. In essence, it stems from a recognition that reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.
Postmodernism is "post" because it is denies the existence of any ultimate principles, and it lacks the optimism of there being a scientific, philosophical, or religious truth which will explain everything for everybody - a characterisitic of the so-called "modern" mind. The paradox of the postmodern position is that, in placing all principles under the scrutiny of its skepticism, it must realize that even its own principles are not beyond questioning. As the philospher Richard Tarnas states, postmodernism "cannot on its own principles ultimately justify itself any more than can the various metaphysical overviews against which the postmodern mind has defined itself."

7 characteristics of postmodernism in Generation Y



Image Credit: luvablelou  -  ©sxc.hu/luvablelou
Postmodern thinking pervades today’s culture, media, and politics.  If you don’t understand the characteristics of postmodernism that govern today’s culture, you miss out on really understanding what goes on in the world.
In order to understand the world around us, we must understand the worldviews and patterns of thought inform the culture around us.  Postmodernism informs more of the current culture than ever before, and is a driving force behind the media, politics, culture, and religion.
Learning these 7 characteristics of postmodernism that drive our culture can make all the difference in making sense of the world.
1. Characteristics of Postmodernism: there is no absolute truth
One of the most prevalent characteristics of postmodernism is the idea that there is no and can never be any kind of absolute truth.  Truth cannot be known in the context of postmodernist thinking, and those who claim to know truth are either lying or foolish.
2. Characteristics of Postmodernism: facts and falsehoods are interchangeable
Because one of the characteristics of postmodernism is that there is no absolute truth, a natural outgrowth of this thinking is that facts and falsehoods are interchangeable.  What is accepted as truth today could easily be proven wrong tomorrow, and vice versa.
3. Characteristics of Postmodernism: frustrated with modern thinking
Postmoderns are typically very frustrated with the modern generation’s inability to deliver on their promises of peace, advancement, and knowledge.  The modern generation’s failure to accomplish their goals has caused postmoderns to harbor a great deal of distrust in the ideals of moderns.
4. Characteristics of Postmodernism: rationalization is the norm
Because of the scientific method’s shortcomings in resolving the problems of the world, postmoderns’ distrust of what is presented as fact has led them to embrace opinion as the driving force of thought.  One of the primary characteristics of postmodernism is therefore that if a person can rationalize their understanding or opinion, it is worthwhile and as true as is possible for the postmodern thinker.
5. Characteristics of Postmodernism: global community more important than nationalism
Rationalization, frustration, and the thinking that there is no truth beyond personal and corporate opinion has resulted in the postmodern tendency toward the belief that the global good is more important than national interests.
6. Characteristics of Postmodernism: all religions deserve equal recognition
One of the most controversial characteristics of postmodernism is the idea the all religions are equally valid.  If, as postmodern thinking dictates, there is no absolute truth, then no one religion offers a “right” way.  If no religion is true, then all religions are equally false, or equally valid, depending on the person’s point of view.
7. Characteristics of Postmodernism: morality is individualistic
If there is no true religion, and if there is no absolute truth, then each person’s ideas about morality are also equally false or valid.  This characteristic is most clearly seen in the common statement, “it’s right for me.”  Every person’s morality belongs to them alone, and morality that is imposed by another, whether by religion, government, or another person, and anything that claims to be absolute truth is to be distrusted.

Life of Pi Genre

Adventure, Magical Realism, Philosophical Literature, Postmodernism

There's no doubt that Life of Pi follows in the footsteps (or wake) of the great high-seas adventure novels. Its author, Yann Martel, spent a year and a half researching (along with religion and zoology) disaster and castaway stories (Yann Martel, "How I Wrote Life of Pi"). The book itself references many of the great adventure novelists like Daniel Defoe and Robert Louis Stevenson, in addition to historical castaways.

So what happens when you blend fiction and reality? Well, it depends. If you're like Martel, and your fictions are out-of-this-world stuff about tigers and carnivorous islands made of seaweed, then you end up with Magical Realism. In Magical Realism, the author retains a basic level of realism – a lifeboat, hunger, animal instinct – but inserts fantastical elements. Like the random French castaway Pi meets near the end. Or that island with all the meerkats.

Just for kicks, Martel allows Pi to relate the "real" version of events at the end of novel. This, friends, is a very postmodern move. (We mean "postmodern" in this sense: that versions of reality (e.g. 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. In essence, there's no such thing as a single true story. Humans often choose the richer story. 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.

Martel doesn't reinvent prose like James Joyce, but he still aims for some fairly lofty goals. He's taken the genre of Magical Realism and, through a real humdinger of a plot, asked his readers some tough questions. Do people believe in religion – and sometimes in fiction – because they tell a better story? A more magical story? Is there anything wrong with that? Because Martel discusses these questions at length – through, of course, Pi Patel – the book also fits neatly in the genre of philosophical literature.

Themes and Questions about the Life of Pi

Agenda:  

Discuss one of the 3 themes (Religion, Literature and Writing,  Man and the Natural World) posted here with a partner and post a response to the questions that follow from your discussion.  

 

Be sure to read Martel's essay "How I Wrote Life of Pi" (see link below.

Begin work on your multi-genre project.

 

Life of Pi Theme of Religion

At times, Life of Pi reads like a defense of religion. Has science proved religion wrong? Here's a protagonist who believes passionately in both zoology and religion. What about the fact of multiple faiths? Don't these faiths contradict each other, cause wars, and other problems? Here's a protagonist who is Muslim, Christian, and Hindu – all at the same time. The book defends not only the common spirit behind these three religions, but the rituals and ceremonies of each. It's as if all three religions find harmonious common ground in this character. Seems unlikely, but then again, the protagonist argues passionately that the miraculous happens in our darkest moments.

Questions About Religion

  1. One beef atheists have with religious belief is that an all-powerful and benevolent God couldn't possibly allow evil. Wouldn't God stop evil things from happening? Does the fact of evil mean God isn't all-powerful? Or maybe God is not benevolent? How do you think Pi deals with this question? Or does he deal with it?
  2. Pi talks a lot about freedom in Part1, Chapter 4. Do you think religion makes Pi freer?
  3. In Part 1, Chapter 16, Pi discusses atman and Brahman, two aspects of the divine that always try to reach each other. Name some points during Pi's ordeal where you think atman, the divine in humans, meets Brahman saguna, the divine present in the world. Do you think there are points when the divine abandons Pi?
  4. The Catholic ritual of communion could be seen as somewhat cannibalistic. After all, believers do symbolically eat "the body of Christ." In what ways does Martel include cannibalism in this novel? Is it always a horrific, degrading thing? Or is it religious and sacred?

Life of Pi Theme of Literature and Writing

In his essay "How I Wrote Life of Pi," Yann Martel says, "I had neither family nor career to show for my 33 years on Earth. [...]. I was in need of a story. More than that, I was in need of a Story." Martel's novel is full of ruminations on writing and the meaning writing and literature give to our lives. In fact, Martel's character, Pi, argues we should choose the most compelling story when we have no confirmation of actual events. Suspicious? Intrigued? You've fallen right into Martel's trap.

Questions About Literature and Writing

  1. What do you think actually happened in the lifeboat? What does your answer say about the power of fiction? (Over you, at least.)
  2. Have you ever read a very skillfully written novel that failed to move you? Do you agree with Martel in the "Author's Note" that passion in writing is just as important as skill?
  3. Unravel – and this might be pretty messy – the connections between belief and fiction in the novel. How does Martel intertwine the two? Should they be wound up together in this big, bright ball of yarn?
  4. Should Pi's various and conflicting stories make us question his reliability? Does it really matter, or is the story we get in the end all that all that is important?

Life of Pi Theme of Man and the Natural World

There's an interesting blurring of divisions between man and the natural world in Life of Pi. Human beings become more animalistic; animals become more human. The novel warns against projecting human values onto the animal world. However, the novel also admits it's impossible to experience anything without a way-of-being. The trick, therefore, is to make concessions to other species. Animals in the zoo, while essentially retaining their instincts, take on certain domestic, human-like traits. Human beings in the wild, while still retaining a few human traits, become more animalistic. Through this exchange human beings may learn – dare we say it – a spiritual truth or two about themselves and the natural world.

Questions About Man and the Natural World

  1. Does Richard Parker seem more savage than Pi? Is Richard Parker more spiritually attuned than Pi?
  2. Think of all the times Pi mentions "the eating of flesh." How does he characterize this act?
  3. Explain how Pi could call the mako and blue sharks swimming below him "beautiful."
  4. Which settings in the book are "man-made"? Which are "natural"?