Historical Events In Life Of Pi

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Parker Ivan
Dr. Wortman-Morris
English 10 Period.1
5/25/14
A lot of historical events happened in 1970’s. Some of these events where put to use in the Life of Pi by Yann Martel and I think inspired by some certain events. One main event that happened was the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, another event that took place was the government corruption and leaders such as Indira Gandhi. She was one of the most influential prime ministers of India. Religion is a huge part of this book as we see pi tries out so many religions that it’s a new one every week. Even religious conflicts happened in the 1970s in India. Pi’s family grew up wealthy with a zoo and all of these conflicts and events happened in the 1970s to make them move in the book and inspire the writer (Martel) to create an award winning novel.
Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 lasted for 13 days, one of the shortest wars in history but had major impacts on both India and Pakistan. This war was between India and Pakistan. This was a war over territory and nuclear power. An estimated death toll for India is about 3,000 and an estimated death toll for Pakistan is about 9,000. Many aircrafts and bombings were used on each land and it was a fast deathly war. Each Country threatened to nuke each other and if one ever did launch their nukes it would kill millions. This war lasted from December 3rd to December 16th. India also worked with the Provisional government of Bangladesh and their forces together over powered Pakistani troops. The war ended in a decisive Indian and Bangladeshi victory. Many attacks happened either with Pakistan air strikes or Indian naval attacks and the Indian forces outnumbered the Pakistan forces 500,000 to 300,000. December 3rd is when the first attack was laun...

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...a deep impact into the writer and Pi’s life.
All of these events actually happened and stimulated the writer to make a grand story and it was so excellent the writer even won 5 awards. The war in India and all of the wars in India during the early to mid 1970s contributed to the writing of the story. With the corrupted government and Indira Gandhi in 1970 and it being overthrown in 1976 was the final push for Pi’s dad and made them take their family and move to Canada. Religion was also an issue for the family and Pi’s whole family was Hindu and changing religions ever week made Pi’s dad mad and inspired them to move to Canada also. When Pi lost his family in the ship wreck he started praying to any god he could. He felt the animals on the boat represented something in his life and that it was a test from god to be courageous and persevere.

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