Life of Pi ship sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a voyage to North America. Richard Parker is a royal Bengal tiger who is stranded on the lifeboat with Pi when the ship sinks. Richard Parker lives on the lifeboat with Pi and is kept alive with the food and water Pi delivers. Richard Parker develops a relationship with Pi that allows them to coexist in their struggle. In the novel, a hunter named Richard Parker is hired to kill a panther thought to have killed seven people within two months. Instead, he accidentally immobilizes a female Bengal tiger with
Life of Pi story as one of "personal growth through adversity." The main character learns that "tigers are dangerous" at a young age when his father forces him to watch the zoo's Royal Bengal tiger patriarch, Mahisha, devour a live goat. Later, after he has been reduced to eking out a desperate existence on the lifeboat with the company of a fully grown tiger, Pi develops "alpha" qualities as he musters the strength, will and skills he needs to survive. In a 2002 interview with PBS, Martel said "I was sort of looking for a story, not only with a small 's' but