<P> PBS has described Martel's 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 . </P> <P> In a 2002 interview with PBS, Martel said "I was sort of looking for a story, not only with a small' s' but 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 . </P> <P> 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 of the name, in the famous legal case R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) where a shipwreck again results in the cannibalism of a cabin boy named Richard Parker, this time in a lifeboat . A third Richard Parker drowned in the sinking of the Francis Spaight in 1846, described by author Jack London, and later the cabin boy (not Richard Parker) was cannibalized . </P> <P> Having read about these events, Yann Martel thought, "So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something ." </P>

Who does the tiger represent in life of pi
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