Life of Pi Comprehension Questions
Chapter 1
1. What does Pi, the novel’s narrator, say helped him recover from his “sad[ness] and
gloom[iness]?”
2. What animal does Pi choose to study for his thesis? Why does he choose this animal?
3. On pages 5-6, what does Pi believe about life and death?
4. What hurts Pi the most about Richard Parker?
5. Where was the hospital in which Pi recovered after surviving his journey?
Chapter 2
1. Who do you think is the speaker (in italics) is describing?
Chapter 3
1. After what was Pi named? What is his full name?
2. Who is Mamaji? What was his favorite thing to tell stories about?
Chapter 4:
1. Why did India get a new zoo?
2. What was Pi’s father’s job before he moved to Pondicherry?
3. Give a basic summary of Pi’s argument about zoos.
4. What faces the same problem as zoos, according to Pi?
Chapter 5:
1. What was Pi’s nickname before he adopted his new name?
2. How did he teach people his new nickname? In other words, what was his strategy
to make it stick?
Chapter 6:
1. Have you guessed who is being discussed yet? What does this person keep
stockpiled in his house?
Chapter 7:
1. Who is Mr. Satish Kumar? What is significant about him?
2. What does Mr. Kumar value above all else?
Chapter 8:
1. Give two examples of why the most dangerous animal in a zoo is Man.
2. What is Animalus anthropomorphicus?
3. What lesson does Pi’s father teach using Mahisha the tiger?
Chapter 9:
1. What is the at the heart of zookeeping, according to Pi? What is an animal’s flight
distance?
Chapter 10:
1. Why do animals flee zoos?
Chapter 11:
1. What is the point of the story Pi tells about the panther?
Chapter 12:
1. Who is talking to Pi? Make an educated guess.
Chapter 13:
1. According to Pi, why does a circus trainer not get eaten by the lions?
2. What does an animal need to know in order for it feel content?
Chapter 14:
1. Which animal does Pi says is the most amenable to the circus trainer’s tricks? Why?
Chapter 15:
1. What kinds of things does the italicized speaker note in Pi’s home? What does this
tell us about Pi?
Chapter 16:
1. Into what religion is Pi born?
2. Give a very brief explanation of Hinduism as you understand it.
3. What does Pi tell his friend about the “Hairless Christians” and Muslims and Hindus?
What does this mean?
Chapter 17:
1. Who did Lord Krishna lead Pi to?
2. What is on top of the three hills in Munnar?
3. What strikes Pi the most when he is in the church?
4. Why is it hard for Pi to connect the “torture scene” in the painting with the priest?
5. What is Pi’s problem with the Son in Christianity?
6. How does the priest answer every one of Pi’s questions?
7. What does the priest tell Pi on Pi’s last visit to the church?
Chapter 18
1. What religion does Pi encounter next?
2. What do Pi and the man at the mosque share together?
3. What does the man interrupt their conversation to do?
Chapter 19
1. What does the man at the mosque say Islam is about? What does Pi say it is about?
Chapter 20
1. What is unusual about the Sufi’s name?
2. What do Pi and the Sufi do together during Pi’s visits?
Chapter 21
1. What kind of thoughts has Pi’s story inspired within the speaker in the italicized
sections?
2. What two phrases stick out the most to the speaker?
Chapter 22
1. Describe the scenario Pi presents in chapter 22.
2. Of atheists and agonistics, which is more likely to come to faith at the end of his life?
Chapter 23
1. What causes Pi’s smile to become a “frozen mask of horror” (65)?
2. Describe Pi’s family’s spiritual beliefs.
3. How do the priest, imam, and pandit get along with one another?
4. What does Pi say that defuses the situation?
Chapter 25
1. What does Pi believe about people arguing about God with one another? What is
something they should be doing instead?
Chapter 26
1. What does Pi ask his father for?
2. Summarize Pi’s argument about the nation in the sky.
Chapter 27
1. What does Pi overhear his parents talking about?
Chapter 28
1. What did the prayer rug remind Pi of whenever he laid it down on the earth?
2. What happens at the end of this chapter?
Chapter 29
1. Why does Pi say people move?
2. What is the final straw for Pi’s father?
3. Where will Pi and his family go?
Chapter 30
1. What does the speaker learn about Pi that surprises him?
Chapter 31
1. What worries Pi about meeting Mr. Kumar at the zoo?
2. What do Pi and the Mr. Kumars do together at the zoo?
Chapter 32
1. Explain what Pi means by “zoomorphism.” Give one of the examples he gives.
2. What is the explanation for this phenomenon?
Chapter 33
1. What does Pi show the speaker?
2. What makes Pi sad at the end of this chapter?
Chapter 34
1. What did the Patel family do with the zoo animals?
Chapter 35
1. On what kind of ship would the Patel family depart for Canada?
2. How old was Pi when his family left India?
3. Why does his mom ask about buying the cigarettes?
Chapter 36
1. What is the speaker’s occupation?
2. Who is in Pi’s family?
Chapter 37
1. What happens to the ship?
2. Who do we know is in the lifeboat with Pi at the end of this chapter?
Chapter 38
1. Into what ocean does the boat sink?
2. Describe the circumstances of the night the boat sinks (as in what wakes up Pi, what
he discovers when he goes exploring, etc.).
3. How does Pi get off the ship?
Chapter 39
1. What part of the lifejacket is Pi able to keep?
2. Who else jumps into the lifeboat?
Chapter 40
1. Draw a picture of Pi and the lifeboat in the ocean (for example, what does the
lifeboat look like? Where is Pi in relation to the lifeboat?).
Chapter 41
1. Where does Pi think Richard Parker is on the lifeboat?
2. Why does Pi believe the zebra is still alive?
Chapter 42
1. Who is Pi overjoyed to see?
2. What is she floating on?
3. What “colossal waste” would later “weigh on [Pi] heavily” (112)?
Chapter 43
1. What does Pi believe will happen to him?
2. How does the hyena behave on the lifeboat?
3. What do hyenas eat?
Chapter 44
1. What sound does Pi associate with his first hours in the lifeboat?
2. What does Pi hear during the night?
Chapter 45
1. What does Pi begin to feel once the sun rises?
2. What happened to the zebra? How does Pi feel about what happened?
3. What makes Pi laugh?
4. What does Pi find remarkable about Orange Juice? Why?
5. Who does Pi make friends with in the ocean?
Chapter 46
1. What dangerous thing pays a visit to Pi’s lifeboat?
2. Why is Orange Juice sad?
3. What was the knocking sound Pi had heard the night before?
4. What happens to the zebra?  How does Orange Juice react?
5. What causes the sharks to swarm?
6. What does Pi begin to believe as the sun sets?
Chapter 47
1. What do we learn about Orange Juice’s backstory?
2. What usually happens to abandoned pets?
3. What does OJ do to the hyena? How does the fight end?
4. Who does Pi discover on the boat?
Chapter 48
1. How did Richard Parker get his name?
2. How did he get to the Pondicherry Zoo?
Chapter 49
1. What is the importance of the example Pi gives about the tennis player?
2. Besides the presence of a 450-pound Bengal tiger, what is Pi’s most pressing
concern?
3. What does Pi realize about why the animals had been behaving so strangely?
Chapter 50
1. Give a brief description of the boat. Draw a picture if it would help you visualize it.
Chapter 51
1. What is Pi looking for in the boat? Where are they located?
2. What does he use to open the can of water?
3. Based on the rations he finds, how long can Pi survive?
Chapter 52
1. Name a few of the things Pi has with him on the boat, besides a tiger and a hyena.
Chapter 53
1. What stops Pi from giving up?
2. What does Pi discover about himself?
3. What does Pi need to build the raft?
4. What happens as Pi is building the raft?
5. Choose three words to describe how Richard Parker looks to Pi on page 151.
6. What hops onto Pi’s head? What does Pi do with it?
7. Draw a picture of Pi’s raft and the lifeboat.
8. What does Pi go back to get on the lifeboat? How does Richard Parker respond?
Chapter 54
1. What are Pi’s six plans? Which one does he choose?
Chapter 55
1. What does Pi realize about his plan?
Chapter 56
1. What, according to Pi, is life’s one true opponent?
2. Summarize what happens when you give in to the one true opponent.
Chapter 57
1. Who is able to calm Pi down?
2. What is the name of the sound Richard Parker makes, and what does it mean?
3. What does Pi realize that he needs to do?
4. What does Pi says Richard Parker was able to do for him?
5. What does Pi do that has an effect on Richard Parker?
6. What is Pi’s seventh plan?
Chapter 58
1. List two things you learned from Pi’s survival manual.
2. What is the most important thing that Pi must make Richard Parker understand?
3. What four other things does Pi have to do?
Chapter 59
1. What was causing the boat to “pitch front to back” rather than “roll side to side?”
2. What is the “quiet but sinister warning” Pi receives on page 170? Why is it troubling
to Pi?
3. What area of the boat has Richard Parker staked out as his own?
4. What does Pi use to stake his own claim on the boat?
5. What is a solar still?
6. Draw a picture of what Pi’s raft looks like after he works on it (173-174).
7. What does Pi compare the ocean to?
Chapter 60
1. What does Pi realize about his suffering when he wakes up in the middle of the
night? How does his view change in the daylight?
Chapter 61
1. What does Pi decide to do for the first time in his life?
2. What does he initially use for bait?
3. What strikes Pi in the face? What does he think it is at first?
4. What does Pi find himself unable to do?
5. What kind of fish does Pi catch? What does it do as it dies?
6. How does Pi remind Richard Parker who gave him food?
Chapter 62
1. What happens that makes Pi very happy?
2. What does Pi do when Richard Parker comes out to drink the water?
Chapter 63
1. How long did Pi survive at sea?
2. What does Pi say was one of the keys to his survival?
3. What is another one of the reasons he survived?
Chapter 64
1. What affliction did Pi begin to suffer once his clothes disintegrated?
Chapter 65
1. What does Pi say the writer of the survivor manual assumed about the castaway
reading the manual?
2. What “narrow road” did Pi travel?
Chapter 66
1. What is Pi’s most valuable fishing equipment?
2. What does Pi begin to use as a lure?
3. What else does Pi catch? What’s the difficulty of this particular creature?
Chapter 67
1. What is on the bottom of Pi’s raft?
Chapter 68
1. What is one of Richard Parker’s favorite activities?
Chapter 69
1. What was Pi convinced that he saw several times in the distance?
2. What do the hand-flares smell like?
Chapter 70
1. What first tempts Pi about the sea turtle? Why?
2. What does Pi decide it’s time to do?
Chapter 71
1. What does Pi say is the difficult part of his tiger-training program?
2. What does Pi say you must not do once your animal “has been roused” and you
begin to “provoke a border intrusion” (203)?
3. What should you do once the animal has trespassed on your territory?
4. What is the purpose of tripping the sea anchor?
5. What should your animal associate with the whistleblowing? How do you want your
animal to feel?
Chapter 72
1. What does Pi use to make a shield?
2. What does Pi say is a reason he survived his “apprenticeship as a high seas animal
trainer” (206)?
3. How many shields did Pi go through before he figured out how to anticipate Richard
Parker’s behavior?
Chapter 73
1. Besides salvation, what else does Pi wish for?
2. What does Pi keep while on the sea?
Chapter 74
1. How would Pi remind himself “of creation and of [his] place in it” (208)?
Chapter 75
1. What does Pi do on his mother’s birthday?
Chapter 76
1. Why does Pi begin cleaning up after Richard Parker?
2. What does Richard Parker do with his feces, and why is that important?
3. What does Pi do with Richard Parker’s feces and why?
Chapter 77
1. What is Pi struggling with in this chapter?
2. What things does Pi eat (and try to eat)?
Chapter 78
1. What does Pi discuss in this chapter?
2. In what way is the life of a castaway about being “caught up in grim and exhausting
opposites” (216)?
3. What is the worst pair of opposites?
Chapter 79
1. How did Pi feel about the sharks?
2. What happens when Pi grabs a hold of the mako and brings it on board?
Chapter 80
1. What does Pi do when he sees that Richard Parker wants the dorado Pi has?
2. What does Richard Parker then do?
Chapter 81
1. Pi attributes his survival not only to Richard Parker’s “weak sea legs” but also to
something else (223). What is it?
Chapter 82
1. About what does Pi worry and have nightmares?
2. How does Pi say he ate his food on the lifeboat?
Chapter 83
1. What does Pi lose during the storm?
2. What does he lose and then find?
Chapter 84
1. After being sprayed by foul-smelling water, what does Pi discover in the ocean? How
does Pi feel about the creatures?
2. What other animals does Pi see?
3. What does Pi do with the masked booby?
4. What does Pi hope about the birds?
Chapter 85
1. How Richard Parker and Pi react to the lightning?
Chapter 86
1. What kind of ship does Pi see in the distance?
2. What happens to the rocket flare Pi shoots off?
3. What happens to the ship?
4. What does Pi tell Richard Parker?
Chapter 87
1. What is Pi’s dream rag, and what does it do?
Chapter 88
1. What do Richard Parker and Pi come upon one day in the ocean?
2. What does Pi do with a bottle he finds?
Chapter 89
1. Think of three adjectives to describe the state of Richard Parker and Pi.
2. What does the last entry in Pi’s journal say?
Chapter 90
1. What does Pi fear is happening to Richard Parker?
2. Why happens to Pi’s eyes?
3. What does this event with his eyes mark the beginning of, according to Pi?
4. What makes Pi sadder than thinking of his own death?
5. What does Pi hear? With a pen or pencil, go through the conversation and mark who
says each line: either P for Pi or S for someone else. This is just so you don’t get
confused.
6. What do they discuss in their conversation?
7. What kinds of food does the other person like?
8. Who does Pi realize is the other participant in their conversation?
9. How many people has Richard Parker killed? Who were they? Why did he do it?
10. What does Pi realize about the voice that makes him think it isn’t Richard Parker
after all?
11. Who is this other person? What does he want when he comes onto Pi’s boat?
12. What happens to the man?
Chapter 91
1. What does Pi find on the man’s boat?
2. What makes Pi’s vision start to come back?
3. What does Pi confess on page 256?
Chapter 92
1. What is unusual about the island Pi discovers?
2. According to the survival manual, what is the “only good judge of land” (258)? What
does Pi say was his final judge of land?
3. What pleasant surprise does Pi learn about the algae?
4. Where does Richard Parker go every night?
5. What does Pi have to relearn and practice while he’s on the island?
6. What animal inhabits the island?
7. What unusual behavior do these animals exhibit?
8. What two things are significant about the ponds on the island?
9. What are other unusual things about the island?
10. What worries Pi about Richard Parker looking for a mate? What does he realize he
has to do again?
11. What does Pi this time train Richard Parker to do?
12. From his new bed on the tree, what does Pi observe the meerkats doing?
13. What does Pi see in the ponds that bothers him?
14. What does Pi realize about the fruit that grows in the tree in the middle of the
island? What is inside it?
15. How does Pi test his conclusion about the island?
16. What is the reason why Richard Parker returns to the boat every night and the
meerkats sleep in the trees and there was nothing on the island but algae?
Chapter 93
1. What does Pi return to in the midst of his “unremitting suffering” (284)?
Chapter 94
1. When Richard Parker and Pi finally reach land, where are they?
2. Describe the conclusion to Pi and Richard Parker’s relationship.
3. What makes Pi weep?
Chapter 95
1. Who is encouraged to go visit Pi in the hospital in Mexico?
2. What are the portions of the transcript written in a different font?
Chapter 96
1. What does Mr. Okamoto offer Pi that makes him very happy?
Chapter 97
1. How many words are in this chapter? 
Chapter 98
1. How do the Japanese men react to Pi’s story?
2. What does Pi keep doing with the cookies?
Chapter 99
1. What does Mr. Okamoto give as the first reason for why Pi’s story doesn’t hold up?
2. What does Pi make them do?
3. What else about Pi’s story do they question (294)?
4. How does Pi disprove their argument?
5. And the other thing they don’t believe (296)?
6. What do the Japanese men tell Pi they want from him?
7. What does Pi say they want from him?
8. In the second version of the story, who is on the lifeboat with Pi?
9. What was wrong with the sailor?
10. What does the cook suggest they do with the sailor? What was his real reason for
suggesting this?
11. What happened to the biscuits?
12. What does the cook do with the dead sailor?
13. What happens to Pi’s mother?
14. What happens to the cook?
15. What do the Japanese men realize about Pi’s two stories?
16. What kinds of questions do they ask Pi after he tells his second story?
17. What does Pi ask the men before they go? What does he say in response to their
answer?
Chapter 100
1. Highlight or underline every word or phrase in the final chapter that has to do with
uncertainty or possibility.
Life of Pi Comprehension Questions
KEY
Chapter 1
1. Academic study and religion
2. Sloth. Its calm and quiet demeanor helped soothe his shattered self.
3. Death sticks closely to life because it is jealous of life’s beauty. He tells death he
doesn’t believe in it.
4. That Richard Parker left Pi so unceremoniously
5. Mexico
Chapter 2
1. Pi
Chapter 3
1. A swimming pool. Piscine Molitor Patel
2. One of his father’s business acquaintances who became like a member of the family.
Swimming pools.
Chapter 4
1. India entered into the Union of India, and a part of the botanical gardens was made
available for a new business opportunity.
2. He ran a large hotel.
3. God and religion
Chapter 5
1. Pissing
2. Rote repetition- In every class, he goes up to the board and writes his full name and
then his new nickname as well as the symbol for Pi.
Chapter 6
1. Cans and packages of food
Chapter 7
1. Pi’s biology teacher. He’s an atheist.
2. Science and reason
Chapter 8
1. Answers will vary. Man has made the entire planet his prey, for example, feeding
fishhooks to otters, razors to bears, etc.
2. The animal as seen through human eyes- cute or friendly or loving, etc.
3. All animals are dangerous.
Chapter 9
1. Getting animals used to the presence of humans. An animal’s flight of distance is the
minimum distance at which an animal wants to keep a perceived enemy.
Chapter 10
1. They might not be kept in suitable enclosures; otherwise some “madness” pushes
them to move in “strange, sometimes inexplicable ways.” They are always fleeing
from something, rather than to somewhere in particular.
Chapter 11
1. Escaped zoo animals are looking for a place to fit in. They aren’t looking to attack
anyone or be found, just to escape and live.
Chapter 12
1. Answers will vary. The person is a writer.
Chapter 13
1. He establishes that the ring is his territory, not the lions’.
2. Where it stands in the social rank
Chapter 14
1. The one with the lowest social standing because it has the most to gain from a close
relationship with the trainer
Chapter 15
1. He has things from Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. All these religions are
meaningful to him.
Chapter 16
1. Hinduism
2. There is a universal soul called Brahman, and it is the Hindu’s seeks to unite his soul,
atman, with Brahman. He will live and die and come back reincarnated over and
over until this happens.
3. Hindus are hairless Christians, just as Muslims are bearded Hindus, and Christians
are hat-wearing Muslims. The differences are slight among the three religions.
Chapter 17
1. Jesus Christ
2. Three different Godhouses: a Hindu temple, a mosque, and a church
3. That there was a priest there, whose profession it was to love and offer guidance
and comfort
4. The priest looked so peaceful, while the painting seemed violent and angry.
5. He’s a god on too human a scale.
6. Love
7. That Pi is already a Christian in his heart
Chapter 18
1. Islam
2. Bread
3. Pray
Chapter 19
1. About the Beloved. A religion of brotherhood and devotion.
Chapter 20
1. It’s the same name as Pi’s old biology teacher.
2. Prayed together and practiced dhikr
Chapter 21
1. The state of his life- understanding the universe
2. Dry, yeastless factuality; the better story
Chapter 22
1. An atheist is on his deathbed and is able to come to faith before he dies. An agnostic
is in the same position but instead tries to rationalize things rather than have belief
or faith.
2. Atheists
Chapter 23
1. He encounters the priest, the imam, and the pandit all at once while he is with his
family.
2. They aren’t spiritual at all.
3. They argue with one another and criticize each other’s religion.
4. That all he is trying to do is love God
Chapter 25
1. They should be directing their anger and criticism within themselves rather than at
others. They could be helping widows and orphans.
Chapter 26
1. To be baptized and for a prayer rug
2. There is only one nation in the sky, and therefore, all passports should be valid for
it; in other words, all religions should be able to get you into heaven.
Chapter 27
1. Him and his religious beliefs
Chapter 28
1. The earth is the creation of God and the same all over
2. Pi gets baptized.
Chapter 29
1. People move in hope of a better life.
2. The Tamil Nadu government was brought down by Delhi—his father was convinced
it was the final touch in Indira Gandhi’s dictatorial takeover of the nation.
3. Canada
Chapter 30
1. He is married
Chapter 31
1. That he will not recognize him
2. Look at the zebra
Chapter 32
1. Where an animal takes a human being or another animal to be one of its kind.
Answers will vary: dog and family, mouse and vipers, dog mother and lions
2. “That measure of madness that moves life in strange but saving ways.”
Chapter 33
1. A family photo album
2. He doesn’t remember what his mother looks like.
Chapter 34
1. Sold them to other zoos
Chapter 35
1. A Japanese cargo ship
2. 16
3. Because she will miss India, wants to keep part of it with her, wonders if things will
be the same in Canada
Chapter 36
1. Writer
2. Wife, son, daughter, dog, cat
Chapter 37
1. It sinks.
2. Pi, Richard Parker, zebra
Chapter 38
1. Pacific
2. Pi wakes up after he hears a funny noise and goes exploring. Outside it’s raining, and
he realizes that it’s storming, not just raining. Inside, the ship is groaning, and when
Pi goes inside, water is flooding the boat. Then the ship begins to list until finally it
sinks.
3. The sailors threw him overboard.
Chapter 39
1. The whistle
2. Zebra
Chapter 40
1. Drawing of Pi in the lifeboat
Chapter 41
1. Under the tarpaulin
2. There was also a hyena on the boat, which makes Pi thinks that RP must have fallen
off the boat and drowned.
Chapter 42
1. Orange Juice
2. Bananas
3. He didn’t get any bananas.
Chapter 43
1. He will be rescued and reunited with his family.
2. It runs around the boat, making loud yipping noises.
3. Almost everything
Chapter 44
1. The buzzing of flies
2. The hyena eating the zebra
Chapter 45
1. Hope
2. The hyena had eaten off the zebra’s leg. He didn’t have much pity to spare for the
zebra, even though he was sad it was suffering.
3. OJ was seasick.
4. She was uninjured. He believes she would smell like prey to the hyena.
5. A turtle
Chapter 46
1. Sharks
2. She misses her children.
3. The zebra’s hoof beating against the side of the boat
4. The hyena was eating the zebra from the inside. OJ roars at the hyena.
5. The zebra’s blood goes overboard.
6. His family is dead.
Chapter 47
1. She used to be a pet, but then her owners dumped her in the jungle.
2. They become depressed and give up on life, die from hunger or exposure, or get
attacked by dogs.
3. She thumps it on the head. It kills OJ. 
4. Richard Parker
Chapter 48
1. There was a clerical error. The name of the hunter who captured him was RP, but
they accidentally wrote on the form that the hunter’s name was Thirsty, and the
tiger’s name was RP.
2. Hunters captured RP’s mom and him as a cub.
Chapter 49
1. When a tennis player is definitely going to lose, he realizes he has nothing left to lose
and becomes relaxed and daring. Pi is the same way with RP. He knows he will die,
so why worry about it?
2. Water
3. They have been acting strangely because they are all prey facing a superior
predator.
Chapter 50
1. Designed to hold 32 people at most, not spacious on the inside because of side
benches that merged at the end and front of the boat to create triangular benches, a
tarpaulin covers part of the boat
Chapter 51
1. Lockers with supplies, especially water; underneath the tarpaulin
2. The tarpaulin hooks
3. 124 days with water, 93 with food
Chapter 52
1. Seasickness medicine, vomit bags, blankets, solar stills, life jackets, flares,
waterproof matches, etc.
Chapter 53
1. He hears a voice inside himself saying that he refuses to die and will not as long as
God is with him.
2. He has a fierce will to live.
3. Life jackets
4. Richard Parker kills the hyena.
5. Answers will vary: overwhelming, graceful, beautiful, striking, intense, cold
6. A rat. He throws it to RP.
7. Picture
8. Rain catcher. RP snarls at him, but that’s it.
Chapter 54
1. 6 plans:
a. Push him off the lifeboat
b. Kill him
c. Attack him with all available weaponry
d. Choke him
e. Poison him, electrocute him, set him on fire
f. Wage a war of attrition—chooses this one
Chapter 55
1. It’s the worst plan because if RP is hungry enough, he will swim out to Pi and eat
him.
Chapter 56
1. Fear
2. Fear takes over your body and weakens you, and you begin to make rash decisions.
Then you lose your faith and trust and defeat yourself.
Chapter 57
1. RP
2. Prusten. It expresses friendliness and harmless intentions.
3. Tame RP
4. He gave Pi the will to live.
5. Blow the whistle
6. Keep RP alive
Chapter 58
1. Answers will vary: Do not drink urine, do not eat jellyfish
2. That Pi is the top tiger
3. Find a means of shelter, tie the raft to the lifeboat with a second rope, improve the
raft, stop hoping a ship would rescue him
Chapter 59
1. The boat is being pushed by the wind but held back by a sea anchor.
2. The cockroaches are jumping off the ship. They are the last foreign life forms, and
when they leave, trying to escape RP, Pi and RP are the only life forms left.
3. The area under the tarpaulin
4. Urine
5. A device that produces fresh water from salt water
6. Picture
7. A city
Chapter 60
1. It was taking place in a grand setting and it was finite and insignificant. In the
daylight, he does feel like his suffering matters.
Chapter 61
1. Fishing
2. His leather shoe
3. A fish. Richard Parker.
4. Bash the fish’s head in with a hatchet
5. Dorado. It flashed all different colors.
6. He blows his whistle.
Chapter 62
1. The solar still worked.
2. He blows his whistle.
Chapter 63
1. 227 days
2. He kept himself busy.
3. He made a point of forgetting, even the notion of time.
Chapter 64
1. Boils
Chapter 65
1. The castaway was an experienced sailor.
2. The Pacific equatorial counter-current
Chapter 66
1. The gaffs
2. The cargo net
3. Turtles. Although they were easy to catch, they were difficult to bring aboard.
Chapter 67
1. “A multitude of sea life”- algae, animal life
Chapter 68
1. Napping
Chapter 69
1. A light
2. Cumin
Chapter 70
1. Its blood
2. To carve out his territory on the boat
Chapter 71
1. You must provoke the animal that is afflicting you.
2. Do not break eye contact.
3. Act outraged, blow the whistle, and trip the sea anchor so that the boat rocks.
4. It makes the boat rock and roll, which makes the animal seasick.
5. Nausea. Sick.
Chapter 72
1. A turtle shell
2. RP didn’t really want to attack Pi
3. Four—the fifth shield lasts the rest of the training.
Chapter 73
1. To have a book
2. A diary
Chapter 74
1. Practiced religious rituals and tried to elevate himself that reminding himself (and
saying it aloud) that everything in the world belonged to God
Chapter 75
1. He sings her “Happy Birthday.”
Chapter 76
1. To show his authority over RP
2. He tries to hide it, which is considered a sign of deference to the other, more
superior animal.
3. He would pick it up, rolled them around in his hands, sniff them, all while
maintaining eye contact and blowing the whistle. He does this psychologically bully
RP.
Chapter 77
1. Hunger
2. Turtles, RP’s feces
Chapter 78
1. His surroundings—the sky and the sea. Life as a castaway.
2. You always wish for whatever the opposite of your circumstances are. For example,
when it is light, the sea is frightening, but when it is dark, that’s frightening too, and
you wish for the light.
3. Boredom and terror
Chapter 79
1. He grew fond of them.
2. RP attacks the shark and eventually kills it, even though it wounds RP in the process.
Chapter 80
1. He stares down RP.
2. RP looks away.
Chapter 81
1. Pi was the source of food and water, and RP was used to having his food and water
brought to him.
Chapter 82
1. That the plastic bags of water he has collected would break open
2. Really quickly—like an animal
Chapter 83
1. His raft
2. The last of the orange whistles
Chapter 84
1. Whales. They lift his spirits.
2. Dolphins, birds
3. Kills it and eats it
4. That they were a sign of land
Chapter 85
1. It scares RP, but Pi is amazed by it.
Chapter 86
1. An oil tanker
2. It ricocheted off the ship’s side and went straight into the ocean.
3. It passes them by.
4. That he loves him and that he doesn’t know what he would do without him
Chapter 87
1. A piece of cloth that he would wet with sea water and place over his face—somehow
it would restrict his air intake and result in dreams and visions.
Chapter 88
1. Trash
2. He puts a message in it and puts it back in the water.
Chapter 89
1. Answers will vary: Wasted, starved, desperate, despairing, hopeless
2. That he is going to die
Chapter 90
1. That he is going blind
2. He also goes blind.
3. The day his extreme suffering began
4. Thinking of RP’s death
5. A voice
6. Food
7. Meat
8. Richard Parker
9. Two
10. He has a French accent.
11. Another castaway on a boat. He wants to eat Pi.
12. RP kills him.
Chapter 91
1. Food
2. Crying
3. He used his flesh for bait but also ate some of it himself.
Chapter 92
1. The island had no soil, and the trees appeared to grow out of pure vegetation.
2. A foot. His nose.
3. It was filled with freshwater.
4. Back to the boat
5. Walking
6. Meerkats
7. ?
8. They are full of dead fish but are freshwater ponds.
9. The island expands and contracts in size. There were no animals but meerkats and
no other living things but algae and trees. The island seemed to be a free-floating
organism.
10. He is worried that RP will start feeling like he wouldn’t tolerate another male in his
territory, so Pi realizes he needs to retrain RP into understanding Pi is the dominant
animal.
11. Jump through a hoop
12. Climbing the trees
13. The pond was full of dead fish, but none of the meerkats go down to the ponds.
14. The fruit wasn’t a fruit after all, but a dense accumulation of leaves glued together in
a ball. Human teeth.
15. He puts his feet onto the ground.
16. The island is carnivorous.
Chapter 93
1. God
Chapter 94
1. Mexico
2. RP just leaves, with no conclusion to their relationship.
3. RP had left him so unceremoniously.
Chapter 95
1. Men from the Maritime Department in the Japanese Ministry of Transport
2. What the men are saying in Japanese
Chapter 96
1. A cookie
Chapter 97
1. Two
Chapter 98
1. They don’t believe it.
2. He keeps hiding them under his bedsheet.
Chapter 99
1. Bananas don’t float.
2. Fill the sink with water and see if the bananas he has float.
3. The carnivorous island
4. Pi has never seen a bonsai tree, but Mr. Chiba swears they exist because his uncle
grows them. Pi responds that he only believes what he has seen, and since he hasn’t
seen a bonsai tree, it must not really exist (which is the argument the men are
making about the island).
5. That RP left the boat and disappeared into the jungle in Mexico
6. The story that really happened, one with the “straight facts”
7. A story that won’t surprise them
8. Pi, his mother, a sailor, and the cook
9. He had a broken leg.
10. He cut the leg off. He wanted to use the leg as bait.
11. Pi and the cook eat them in secret.
12. He uses his flesh for bait but also eats it himself.
13. The cook kills her.
14. Pi kills him.
15. They match up.
16. Questions about how the ship sank in the first place
17. Which is the better story. “And so it goes with God.”
Chapter 100
1. Answers will vary: appears, would indicate, impossible to determine, unreliable,
perhaps, hinting, speculation, possibility, conjecture