Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Life of Pi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Survival
Religion and Faith
Storytelling
Boundaries
Summary
Analysis
That night Pi overheard his parents talking about his new faiths. They then discussed Mrs. Gandhi, the current prime minister, and lamented her “foolishness” which they hoped would soon pass. They wished aloud that Pi would get some more “normal” interests, but eventually they decided to indulge him, assuming religion was just a phase.
This part of the story is set in a period of political turmoil called ‘The Emergency,” when the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency for the country, effectively suspending all constitutional rights so that she would not be expelled from office for electoral fraud.
Themes
