Life of Pi sort of with a capital 'S' – something that would direct my life." He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life, and found that writing the novel met this need. The name of Martel's tiger, Richard Parker, was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (1838). In this book, Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship (and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger). The author also had in mind another occurrence
The White Tiger rarest of animals – the creature that comes along only once in a generation? The white tiger” (30). Balram calls himself White Tiger permanently after this event. He fully takes on and embodies the life of a white tiger. In Balram’s opinion, “[Slaves] remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world” (34). A “white tiger” can never be a slave, because it can see and pursue beauty. “Beauty,” in this case, is the life of financial prosperity and freedom of choice that Balram yearns for. Amidst the other animals in the darkness, amidst the other children