Overall Plot
What was the inciting force?
The shipwreck that killed Pi's family.
How does Pi assert psychological freedom?
By constructing his raft, training Richard Parker, and mastering his environment.
What does Richard Parker symbolize?
The ID and Pi's possible internalized violence and other feelings.
How does storytelling serve as psychological defense and liberation?
Retelling creates control and rationalization over trauma.
What's Pi's mentality before his journey on the lifeboat?
Innocent, spiritual/religious, and seeking freedom.
What does Pi define freedom as?
Survival & Control.
How does Pi create order in chaos?
He creates routine, like fishing, praying, and rationing.
What does the lifeboat symbolize?
Prison and salvation and how freedom often coexists with confinement.
How does faith and ritual play into psychological freedom?
It helps Pi keep his sense of identity intact through prayer and devotion.
What does Pi lose throughout his journey?
Moral freedom, some religious practices, and hope.
What causes Pi to lose his moral and spiritual freedom?
How does Pi survive mentally?
He practices mental freedom by praying and rationalizing what he's enduring.
What does the ocean symbolize?
Infinite freedom, uncertantiy, and thr lack of control within the mind.
What do the animals represent?
Natural instinct, human characteristics, and internalized feelings.
Defining reality in his own terms
What story did Pi choose, and who did he tell it to?
The story about animals & Mr. Chiba and Mr. Okamoto.
What chapter is this quote from?
“I would fall into a daze, not difficult for someone in such an advanced state of lethargy to begin with...I would be visited by the most extraordinary dreams, trances, visions, thoughts, sensations, remembrances. And time would be gobbled up.”
Chapter 87 or page 236.
What does the carnivorous island symbolize?
Illusory freedom, comfort transformed into entrapment, and mirroring the danger of avoiding reality through denial.
What are the three most mentioned words or nouns throughout the novel?
God, Pi, and Richard Parker.
What was Pi's most pivotal moment?
When he finally reaches Mexico and finds the hope he lost once again.