少年派英文分析和总结人物分析作者背景相关问题.docx

1、少年派英文分析和总结人物分析作者背景相关问题ContextLife of Pi is set against the tumultuous period of Indian history known as the Emergency. In 1975, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was found guilty of charges related to her 1971 election campaign and was ordered to resign. Insteadand in response to a rising tide of strikes

2、 and protests that were paralyzing the governmentGandhi declared a state of emergency, suspending constitutional rights and giving herself the power to rule by decree. The Emergency lasted for eighteen months and was officially ended in March 1977 when Gandhi called for a new round of elections. The

3、 historical legacy of the Emergency has been highly controversial: while civil liberties in this emerging democracy were severely curtailed and Gandhis political opponents found themselves jailed, abused, and tortured, Indias economy experienced a much-needed stabilization and growth. In Life of Pi,

4、 Piscine (Pi) Molitor Patels father, a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India, grows nervous about the current political situation. Speculating that Gandhi might try to take over his zoo and faced with depressing economic conditions, Pis father decides to sell off his zoo animals and move his family to Can

5、ada, thus setting the main action of the novel into motion.Though only a relatively brief section of Life of Pi is actually set in India, the countrys eclectic makeup is reflected throughout the novel. Pi is raised as a Hindu but as a young boy discovers both Christianity and Islam and decides to pr

6、actice all three religions simultaneously. In the Authors Note, an elderly Indian man describes the story of Pi as “a story that will make you believe in God,” and Life of Pi continuously grapples with questions of faith; as an adherent to the three most prominent religions in India, Pi provides a u

7、nique perspective on issues of Indian spirituality. Indias diverse culture is further reflected in Martels choice of Pondicherry as a setting. India was a British colony for nearly two hundred years, and consequently most of the nation has been deeply influenced by British culture. However, Pondiche

8、rry, a tiny city in southern India, was once the capital of French India and as such has retained a uniquely French flavor that sets it apart from the rest of the nation. Perhaps reflecting Yann Martels own nomadic childhood, Pi Patel pointedly begins his life in a diverse cultural setting before en

9、countering French, Mexican, Japanese, and Canadian characters along his journey.Life of Pi can be characterized as a postcolonial novel, because of its post-Independence Indian setting as well as its Canadian authorship. Like many postcolonial novels, such as those of Salman Rushdie and Gabriel Garc

10、a Mrquez, Life of Pi can also be classified as a work of magical realism, a literary genre in which fantastical elementssuch as animals with human personalities or an island with cannibalistic treesappear in an otherwise realistic setting. Martels novel could equally be described as a bildungsroman

11、(a coming-of-age tale) or an adventure story. Life of Pi even flirts with nonfiction genres. The Authors Note, for example, claims that the story of Piscine Molitor Patel is a true story that the author, Yann Martel, heard while backpacking through Pondicherry, and the novel, with its first-person n

12、arrator, is structured as a memoir. At the end of the novel, we are presented with interview transcripts, another genre of nonfiction writing. This mixing of fiction and nonfiction reflects the twist ending of the novel, in which the veracity of Pis fantastical story is called into doubt and the rea

13、der, like Pis Japanese interrogators, is forced to confront unsettling questions about the nature of truth itself.Many critics have noted the books resemblance to Ernest Hemingways novel The Old Man and the Sea. Both novelsfeature an epic struggle between man and beast. In The Old Man and the Sea, a

14、 fisherman struggles to pull in a mighty marlin, while in Life of Pi, Pi and Richard Parker struggle for dominance on the lifeboat. Both the fisherman and Pi learn to respect their animal counterparts; each pair is connected in their mutual suffering, strength, and resolve. Although they are opponen

15、ts, they are also partners, allies, even doubles. Furthermore, both novels emphasize the importance of endurance. Because death and destruction are inevitable, both novels present life as a choice between only two options: defeat or endurance until destruction. Enduring against all odds elevates bot

16、h human characters to the status of heroes.Another, less flattering comparison has been drawn between Life of Pi and acclaimed Brazilian author Moacyr Scliars 1981 novel Max and the Cats. In a 2002 interview with P, Martel discusses reading an unfavorable review of Scliars novel in the New York Time

17、s Book Review penned by John Updike and, despite Updikes disparagement, being entranced by the premise. As was later reported, no such review existed, and John Updike himself claimed no knowledge of Scliars novel. The similarities between the two novels are unmistakable: in Max and the Cats, a famil

18、y of German zookeepers sets sail to Brazil. The ship goes down and only one young man survives, stranded at sea with a wild jaguar. Martel claims never to have read Max and the Cats before beginning to write Life of Pi. He has since blamed his faulty memory for the P gaffe and has declined further d

19、iscussion on the topic. Scliar considered a lawsuit but is said to have changed his mind after a discussion with Martel. Whatever the real story, Martel mentions Scliar in his Authors Note, thanking him for “the spark of life.”Plot OverviewIn an Authors Note, an anonymous author figure explains that

20、 he traveled from his home in Canada to India because he was feeling restless. There, while sipping coffee in a caf in the town of Pondicherry, he met an elderly man named Francis Adirubasamy who offered to tell him a story fantastic enough to give him faith in God. This story is that of Pi Patel. T

21、he author then shifts into the story itself, but not before telling his reader that the account will come across more naturally if he tells it in Pis own voice.Part One is narrated in the first person by Pi. Pi narrates from an advanced age, looking back at his earlier life as a high school and coll

22、ege student in Toronto, then even further back to his boyhood in Pondicherry. He explains that he has suffered intensely and found solace in religion and zoology. He describes how Francis Adirubasamy, a close business associate of his fathers and a competitive swimming champion, taught him to swim a

23、nd bestowed upon him his unusual name. Pi is named after the Piscine Molitor, a Parisian swimming club with two pools that Adirubasamy used to frequent. We learn that Pis father once ran the Pondicherry Zoo, teaching Pi and his brother, Ravi, about the dangerous nature of animals by feeding a live g

24、oat to a tiger before their young eyes. Pi, brought up as a Hindu, discovers Christianity, then Islam, choosing to practice all three religions simultaneously. Motivated by Indias political strife, Pis parents decide to move the family to Canada; on June 21, 1977, they set sail in a cargo ship, alon

25、g with a crew and many cages full of zoo creatures.At the beginning of Part Two, the ship is beginning to sink. Pi clings to a lifeboat and encourages a tiger, Richard Parker, to join him. Then, realizing his mistake in bringing a wild animal aboard, Pi leaps into the ocean. The narrative jumps back

26、 in time as Pi describes the explosive noise and chaos of the sinking: crewmembers throw him into a lifeboat, where he soon finds himself alone with a zebra, an orangutan, and a hyena, all seemingly in shock. His family is gone. The storm subsides and Pi contemplates his difficult situation. The hye

27、na kills the zebra and the orangutan, and thento Pis intense surpriseRichard Parker reveals himself: the tiger has been in the bottom of the lifeboat all along. Soon the tiger kills the hyena, and Pi and Richard Parker are alone together at sea. Pi subsists on canned water and filtered seawater, eme

28、rgency rations, and freshly caught sea life. He also provides for the tiger, whom he masters and trains.The days pass slowly and the lifeboats passengers coexist warily. During a bout of temporary blindness brought on by dehydration, Pi has a run-in with another blind castaway. The two discuss food

29、and tether their boats to one another. When the blind man attacks Pi, intending to eat him, Richard Parker kills him. Not long after, the boat pulls up to a strange island of trees that grow directly out of vegetation, without any soil. Pi and Richard Parker stay here for a time, sleeping in their b

30、oat and exploring the island during the day. Pi discovers a huge colony of meerkats who sleep in the trees and freshwater ponds. One day, Pi finds human teeth in a trees fruit and comes to the conclusion that the island eats people. He and Richard Parker head back out to sea, finally washing ashore

31、on a Mexican beach. Richard Parker runs off, and villagers take Pi to a hospital.In Part Three, two officials from the Japanese Ministry of Transport interview Pi about his time at sea, hoping to shed light on the fate of the doomed ship. Pi tells the story as above, but it does not fully satisfy th

32、e skeptical men. So he tells it again, this time replacing the animals with humans: a ravenous cook instead of a hyena, a sailor instead of a zebra, and his mother instead of the orangutan. The officials note that the two stories match and that the second is far likelier. In their final report, they

33、 commend Pi for living so long with an adult tiger.Piscine Molitor PatelPiscine Molitor Patel is the protagonist and, for most of the novel, the narrator. In the chapters that frame the main story, Pi, as a shy, graying, middle-aged man, tells the author about his early childhood and the shipwreck that changed