Life of Pi Vocabulary

Pi's hometown in India, where the author meets Mr. Adirubasamy.

Pi's hometown in Canada where he attends college, gets married, and meets the author of the story.

the scientific study of the behavior, structure, physiology, classification, and distribution of animals- Pi studies this in college along with theology.

Pi's older brother. He prefers sports to schoolwork and is quite popular. He teases his younger brother mercilessly over his devotion to three religions.

Someone who denies the existence of god.

The Catholic priest who introduces Pi to Christianity after Pi wanders into his church. He preaches a message of love. He, the Muslim Mr. Kumar, and the Hindu pandit disagree about whose religion Pi should practice.

Pi's wife, whom the author meets briefly in Toronto.

The town in Mexico where Pi washes up at after being stuck in the lifeboat with Richard Parker for 227 days.

The elderly man who tells the author Pi's story during a chance meeting in a Pondicherry coffee shop. Pi calls him Mamaji, an Indian term that means respected uncle.

Slow-moving arboreal mammals of South and Central America that Pi studied in college.

Pi's father. He once owned a Madras hotel, but because of his deep interest in animals decided to run the Pondicherry Zoo. A worrier by nature, he teaches his sons not only to care for and control wild animals, but to fear them. Though raised a Hindu, he is not religious and is puzzled by Pi's adoption of numerous religions. The difficult conditions in India lead him to move his family to Canada.

The bengal tiger that Pi's father uses to teach his children the lesson that tigers are extremely dangerous.

The Royal Bengal tiger with whom Pi shares his lifeboat. His captor named him Thirsty, but a shipping clerk made a mistake and reversed their names. From then on, at the Pondicherry Zoo, he was known as that. Weighing 450 pounds and about nine feet long, he kills the hyena on the lifeboat and the blind cannibal. With Pi, however, he acts as an omega, or submissive, animal, respecting Pi's dominance.

Pi and Meena's children and dog.

Everything around us; the trees, the earth, the air, the universe, and beyond; God and all His people.

Everything that can be seen, touched, smelled; experienced.

He taught Pi to swim as a child and bestowed upon him his unusual moniker. He arranges for the author to meet Pi in person, so as to get a first-person account of his strange and compelling tale. His real name is Francis Adirubasamy.

The branch of science that deals with the origin of the universe, especially the solar system.

The protagonist of the story. He is the narrator for most of the novel, and his account of his seven months at sea forms the bulk of the story. He gets his unusual name from the French word for pool—and, more specifically, from a pool in Paris in which a close family friend, Francis Adirubasamy, loved to swim. A student of zoology and religion, He is deeply intrigued by the habits and characteristics of animals and people.

Pi's atheistic biology teacher at Petit Séminaire, a secondary school in Pondicherry. A polio survivor, he is an odd-looking man, with a body shaped like a triangle. His devotion to the power of scientific inquiry and explanation inspires Pi to study zoology in college.

A plain-featured Muslim mystic with the same name as Pi's biology teacher. He works in a bakery. Like the biology teacher, he has a strong effect on Pi's academic plans: his faith leads Pi to study religion at college.

The town that Pi went on vacation on with his family where he met Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith.

When an animal takes a human or other animal to be its own kind.

The ship that is supposed to take Pi and his family to Canada- which sinks killing Pi's family and leaves him stranded with a tiger on a lifeboat.