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
Dance of the Tiger people as more aggressive, practicing slavery and choosing violence to solve social problems. The Neanderthal society, based on a matriarchal system, is drawn as peace-loving with elaborate social rituals designed to resolve problems. The novel is known for its plausibility and accuracy. Kurtén's supposition that Neanderthals and ancestors of modern "Homo sapiens" occupied same areas in the same time in Europe has been confirmed by fossil evidence. Kurtén wasn't the first novelist to examine the subject; for instance author William Golding also examined the issue of Neanderthal extinction in "The Inheritors". Dance of the Tiger Dance of the Tiger (Swedish: