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Chapter 29
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
The author interrupts again to describe his meeting with Pi’s wife, Meena. The author had been meeting visiting Pi for a while without ever hearing about a wife, so her existence first came as a shock to him. The author wonders at how protective Pi is of the things that are precious to him. The author wonders if Meena is the one who has been cooking so much spicy food, but then he confirms that Pi is the cook.
The same post-deprivation mindset that leads Pi to stock up on canned food also causes him to guard his family closely. The author returns to Pi’s spicy cooking, a reminder that Pi was once without food at all and so now has a special appreciation for it, and also referring back to Pi’s “spicing up” of “yeastless reality.”
Themes
