english II chapters 1-8

4. What was the author's "one preparation" for his trip to India?

A friend told him that Indians liked to use English words that native English speakers very rarely used. He told Martel that Indians loved words like "bamboozled," for example. This one fact was all the knowledge Martel had of India.

2. What can we determine about Mr. Patel from his tone?

He seems to be a gentle, intensely emotional person. He expresses love for a boy who beat him in a scholarship competition, and He tells us that he once fainted when a faucet was turned on because the experience was so shocking. He is also very interested in and knowledgeable about animals.

5. Does Piscine think animals are better off in the wild or in a zoo?

Piscine thinks animals do better living in a zoo

7. What did Piscine's father do for a living?

Piscine's father was a zookeeper.

2. Why does Mr. Kumar love the zoo?

The zoo reassures Mr. Kumar that the universe is orderly.

5. What were Mr. Patel's two majors in college? What connection does he make between the two?

in zoology and religious studies.

3. According to Piscine, what are the only two things that are important to wild animals?

"the avoidance of enemies and the getting of food and water.

3. What qualities does Pi show in choosing to change his own name? What kind of person is Pi Patel?

He shows a will to survive and the ability to take control of a situation.

6. What is significant about the narrator's name?

Piscine was named after a famous swimming pool, and he loves to swim.

8. How are atheists like believers, according to Pi?

(Both stick to their beliefs)

4. What happens when the waiter accuses Mr. Patel of being "fresh off the boat"?

He feels ashamed, more animal than human.

3. What does the name "Mamaji" mean?

In Tamil, an Indian dialect, "Mama" means "uncle." "Ji" is a suffix that "indicates respect and affection." Although not related to Mr, Patel, Mamaji was like a beloved uncle to him.

3. What cities does Mr. Patel say he would like to visit?

Oxford,Mecca,Varanasi,Jerusalem,Paris

9. What problem does Pi have with agnostics?

Agnostics refuse to make any assertion about God; they dwell perpetually in doubt.

Who is the first speaker in the book? What kind of person does he seem to be? How can you tell?

The first speaker in the book is the author. He seems to be a romantic, rather than a practical person—he goes to India on a whim, mails his manuscript to nowhere, and finally writes a whole book about a man he meets by chance.

4. What distinction does Mr. Patel make between the ocean and the swimming pool?

The ocean is chaotic and uncontrollable, while the swimming pool has formal flatness."

1. What significant trait did the narrator and Mamaji share?

They both loved swimming.

Do you believe everything the narrator says in the "Author's Note"? How reliable do you think he is? Why?

Answers will vary, but the author gives us a few clues that the "reality" of the book will not be straightforward. For instance, he says, "That's what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence?" And in the last sentence of the Author's Note, he says, "If we, citizens, do not support our artists, we sacrifice our imagination on the crude altar of reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams."

3. Why did the author go to India?

He had written a book that was published in Canada, but it was not very well received. Feeling defeated and restless, he decided to go to India to work on his next novel.

3. What detail does the author note in this chapter?

He says that Pi's kitchen is jammed with far more food than he could eat, as if he is stocking up for some disaster

6. What does the adult Piscine say about the idea of freedom versus the "prison" of zoos?

He says that all animals want consistency and regularity. They mark off a small space and are happy as long as they are inside and everyone else stays out.

4. Pi's father thinks that it is important that Pi and his brother, Ravi, know how dangerous animals can be. What does Mr. Patel do to show his sons how dangerous tigers are? What theme of the book does this episode emphasize?

He starves one of the zoo's tigers, then releases a goat into its cage. He makes Pi and Ravi watch as the ravenous tiger kills and eats the goat. This chapter deals with the difference between humans and animals and the relationship between them. The death of the goat graphically illustrates the animal side of nature.

5. Why does the author mail his manuscript for the book about Portugal to a made-up address in Siberia?

He thinks that his novel is worthless, so as a mark of his defeat, he mails his manuscript to a place that does not exist.

1. What did Piscine's father do before he became a zookeeper? What comment does Piscine make about the transition from hotel manager to zookeeper?

His father ran a hotel; according to Piscine, running a zoo is not very different.

1. According to Pi, why do zoologists "commonly say...that the most dangerous animal in a zoo is man"?

Man is the one who causes problems in zoos by tormenting the animals. Human beings will feed dangerous items to animals like "razors...nails...(and) broken glass

7. What is most significant about the story that the author hears?

Mr. Adirubasamy says that the story the author is about to hear, and which we are about to read, "will make you believe in God." [Note to teacher: This is important because a central theme of the book is the importance of storytelling and imagination to man's spiritual survival. Pi Patel says that we need stories to understand our universe].

6. Who first tells the author about Mr. Patel's story? How many storytellers does this make in the book so far?

Mr. Adirubasamy, a man he meets in a coffee house, tells the author the story. We now have a tale based on a story heard from a stranger in a coffee shop, retold by an author we cannot be sure of. [An important part of this book is the changing of "reality" as it is retold and reheard by different people An interesting side project, if you have time, would be to have students look at Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," which deals with similar subject matter and is also filtered through multiple storytellers.]

7. Why does the author have Mr. Kumar call Piscine "3.14"?

Mr. Kumar is a highly analytical man who sees the world as arranged in geometric order.

5. Describe the relationship between Pi and Mr. Kumar.

Mr. Kumar is not just a teacher to Pi. He is also Pi's mentor. Although Pi disagrees with Mr. Kumar's beliefs about religion, he admires the teacher. In fact, Pi admires Mr. Kumar so much that he later decides to major in zoology.

4. Why does Mr. Kumar call the zoo his "temple"?

Mr. Kumar looks at the animals in the zoo as models for human behavior. Just as religious people have holy books and figures to imitate, he has the natural world to show him how things should be.

3. Explain what animals represent to Mr. Kumar and how his views on animals differ from Pi's.

Mr. Kumar thinks that animals are "exceptionally fine illustration(s) of science." Pi also sees the animals at the zoo as representative of order in the world; the order he sees, however, is a kind of spiritual harmony.

7. How does Piscine link his statement about freedom in zoos to religion?

People no longer look upon religion favorably because they consider it confining.

2. What might be significant about the name Pi?

Pi is the ratio of a circle's diameter to its circumference. Circles will be very important in this book;

1. Analyze the description of Mr. Kumar in this chapter. What language and imagery does Pi use to describe him?

Pi says, "[Mr. Kumar's] construction was geometric: he looked like two triangles, a small one and a larger one, balanced on two parallel lines."

2. How, according to Piscine, did his father feel about running the zoo? How did Pi feel about living there?

Piscine does not describe his father's feelings directly, but does say that "running a zoo is a hotelkeeper's worst nightmare." The boy living in the zoo, however, was free to experience all the glories of the natural world. The author is making a distinction between adult responsibility and the pure experience of childhood.

4. What does Piscine imply when he says that "a house is compressed territory, where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely"?

Piscine is comparing human habitation with animal habitation. Just like a man in a house who has everything he needs, an animal in a zoo is provided with all of his necessities in a convenient, small space.

1. Piscine's classmates tease him about his name, deliberately mispronouncing it. When he begins Petit Seminaire, what does Piscine to do introduce himself to his new class?

Piscine walks up to the chalkboard and writes, "My name is Piscine Molitor Patel, known to all as Pi Patel." Beneath this, he writes "3.14," the mathematical constant that is named after the Greek letter Pi.

2. What animal does Pi's father believe is "even more dangerous than us"?

The anthropomorphized animal is the most dangerous of all; people should not make the mistake of believing animals are like humans, with human understanding and love.

6. Near the end of this chapter, the story makes an abrupt change. We started the chapter with the narrator talking about his love of animals and his personal beliefs about God. At the end of the chapter, however, he begins talking about doctors, nurses, and his medical health. What do you think the author is trying to convey here?

The author is using foreshadowing to hint at the fact that the narrator has had some sort of medical trauma.

5. In this chapter, we finally learn the full name of our narrator. What is it and how did he get it?

The narrator is Piscine Molitor Patel. He was named after Mamaji's favorite pool in Paris, France, the Piscine Molitor.

1. Once again, the point of view shifts from first person to third person. Who do you think is speaking in this chapter?

The speaker is the author.

1. Why did the person speaking in chapter 1 choose to study the sloth?

The speaker says, "I chose the sloth because its demeanor—calm, quiet and introspective— did something to soothe my shattered self." The speaker is probably Pi Patel.

1. Chapter 2 is very short. Why do you think the author included this chapter? What is hinted at in this chapter?

This chapter provides a transition between Pi's description of his life in Canada and his childhood in India. In this chapter, the narrator hints that something very serious happened to Pi—he is prematurely gray-haired, and he wears a heavy coat even when the weather is not very cold

2. Was Mamaji a good swimmer?

Use examples from the text to support your answer. Yes, Mamaji was an excellent swimmer. In fact, he was "the champion (swimmer) of all South India." He loved swimming all his life and even as he grew older, he "swam thirty lengths (of the pool) every morning."

2. Whom is the narrator in this chapter describing?

We can assume that the narrator is describing Pi.

7. What can we infer about the narrator so far?

We can infer that he came from India ("I have nothing to go home to in Pondicherry"). We can also guess that he suffered a severe medical problem, one that was bad enough to warrant a hospital stay ("The doctors and nurses at the hospital in Mexico were incredibly kind to me").

3. Pi says, "The obsession with putting ourselves at the center of everything is the bane not only of theologists but also of zoologists." What might he mean by this?

We can understand neither God nor nature by comparing them to ourselves.

6. Why does Mr. Kumar not believe in God?

When he was a child, Mr. Kumar had polio. Every day, he cried out for God, but God never came to relieve his affliction. Mr. Kumar says that "it wasn't God who saved (him from polio) - it was medicine." Therefore, he believes in science rather than in God.