Life of Pi (film) family, but a crewman throws him into a lifeboat. A freed zebra jumps onto the boat with him, breaking its leg. The ship sinks into the Mariana Trench drowning his family. Pi briefly sees what appears to be a survivor, but it turns out to be Richard Parker. After the storm, Pi awakens in the lifeboat with the zebra, and is joined by a resourceful orangutan. A spotted hyena emerges from under a tarpaulin covering half of the lifeboat and snaps at Pi, forcing him to retreat to the end of the boat. The hyena kills the zebra and later
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