the weakest link: answers of the author (lesson 5th/06)

Would you say that religion and fiction work in the same way?
To the extent that for either to work you have to suspend your disbelief. The subtext of Life of Pi can be summarised in three lines:
1) Life is a story.
2) You can choose your story.
3) A story with God is the better story.

Pi imagines that his brother would have teasingly called him Noah. How does Pi’s voyage compare to the biblical story of Noah, who was spared from the flood while God washed away the sinners?

Like Noah, Pi has to live with animals on a boat. The cook was a sinner and he disappeared. However Pi is not innocent.

What did Pi learn in his life?

Survival.

What is the role of the story with the island?
I wanted to push the reader till he/she was forced to make some leap of faith. If the island didn't do it, then I hoped the second story would.
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/nov/26/fiction
ch 99, ch 7 when you read the story you believe it at first but then you start to be mistrustful as the algae island seems too strange. yet, at the end you prefer to believe in the story of the algae island: you take a leap of faith because the rational story is too awful.

What do you need to do to get the full flavour of life?

“You can view the world in different ways - historical, scientific, social, political - but there are limits to what you can do with a calculator or a hammer. You must make a leap of faith to get the full flavour of life.”
http://textualities.net/writers/features-h-m/martely01.php
ch 99, 23 reason is helpful but it doesn’t tell you why there is life, it explains how life appeared. you must believe in god otherwise life is absurd and meaningless.

The answers of the author (grpwork of the 29/05)

What human trait do the animals on the lifeboat embody?
“The other animals in the lifeboat ? The zebra, the hyena and the orang-utan arose naturally, each one a function of a human trait I wanted to embody, the hyena cowardliness, the orang-utan maternal instincts and the zebra exoticism.”
http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html
ch99 the hyena is the symbol for the cook who decided to let the sailor die to use his body as bait. he couldn’t resist his lower instincts: hunger. the orang utan stands for the mother and rebels against the hyena. the zebra represents the Chinese sailor that they don’t understand. he’s a foreigner. It’s easier to kill someone you don’t know and see as a perfect stranger.

What is the common point between religion and reality? Think of Pi’s particularity!

Interviewer: “Is your exploration of multifaith in Life of Pi a part of your exploration of the boundaries and blurrings of reality, fiction and storytelling? Is multifaith comparable to a multiple-reality existence?”
Yann Martel : “Yes. And yes. Reality is how we interpret it. Imagination and volition play a part in that interpretation, which means that all reality is to some extent a fiction. This is what I explore in the novel.”
volition: son propre gré
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/nov/26/fiction
cf Ch 99, , CH7 , CH 23there’s not only one reality in life but different interpretations of it. Pi imagines that he was in the lifeboat with the tiger because it would be too hard to live with the burden of having eaten human flesh. it would also be too hard to live in an absurd world without god.

Why does Pi say ‘love is hard to believe, ask any lover”?

“Pi had told them two stories. Both had the same beginning: a ship leaves India. Both had the same ending: there is only one human survivor - in either case, the investigators only have his word for what happened. Pi asks the investigators, 'If you stumble about believability, what are you living for?' He says, 'Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer.' He wants to know why they have a problem with 'hard to believe'.”
http://textualities.net/writers/features-h-m/martely01.php
ch 7, 23, 99 The common point between all the religions is love. At the beginning Pi doesn’t understantd why Abraham kills his son and the Father Martin tells him that’s because of love. In life you have to take a leap of faith to live fully. you have to believe even if it’s hard. At the end, the two officials prefer to believe the story with the animals. Scientists and religious people take a leap of faith as scientists go as far as reason bring them and then they leap. they believe in the supreme power of reason to explain everything but reason doesn’t tell you why you are or why biological rules lead to the appearance of humans from cells.

oral training unknown doc 4th or 9th june

We will work on 'new technologies', 'immigration' and 'violence'.
Do the exercises and learn the vocab!

'new technologies'

A/Sort out the words in the grid

Advantages	Drawbacks

a)to fulfil a dream

b)not to distinguish between reality and illusion

c)to pretend to do sthg

d)to be cautious: être prudent

e)to break down barriers : casser des barrières

f)to get to know : apprendre à connaître

g)to reveal yourself

h) to be shy (timide)=/= outgoing

i) to be a good opportunity to do sthg (occasion)

j)for real: pour de vrai

k) a bad way of life: mode de vie (way:façon)

l)to lie: mentir

m)exciting=/= n)dull

o) a world of your own : un monde à soi

p)thanks to: grâce à

q) to enable X to do sthg: permettre à X de faire qqchse

r) to be addicted to sthg

s) to be cut off from society

t) to move with your time

'violence'

A/match the English to the definitions:

To be trigger happy / to be trivial / to take sthg for granted / to feel safe to bully

1) to be crazy about guns and to be ready to shoot anytime.

2) to think that sthg is normal

3)to feel powerful, in security

4)to be common

5)to behave in an aggressive way towards someone who is weaker.

B/match these phrases to their equivalent (look for similarities with French):

1)panic-stricken

2)aghast

3)to slay X

4)to threaten X with sthg.

5)slaughter=bloodbath

6)to hold up

7)to claim one’s rights

8)to take X hostage

9)to do a coup

a)to shoot at X

b)to keep X as prisoner

c)massacre

d)horrified=terrified

e)who feels panic

f)to tell X that you will do sthg if they don’t obey you

g)to rob

h) to declare that you can do sthg, that you are allowed to do sthg

i)to overthrow a government.

'immigration'

A/Match the English to the French

1) to go through hardships

2) a grim future

3) to be in store for X

4) to earn a decent living = to make a decent living

5)housing conditions

6) to make ends meet

7) to cross the border

8) to find a way out of poverty

9) to look for better prospects=better opportunities

10)to be lured by sthg

a)subvenir à ses besoins

b)subir des épreuves

c)joindre les deux bouts

d)un triste avenir

e)attendre X

f)conditions de logement

g)rechercher un meilleur avenir

h)traverser la frontière

i)échapper à la pauvreté.

j)être leurré par qqchse

oral training unknown doc 19th or 21st May

We will work on 'Globalisation/fast food' , 'the environment' and 'discrimination'.
Do the exercises and learn the vocab!

Globalisation/fast food'

A/Match the words to their definition

1)to be brainwashed

2)consumer society

3)companies

4)to be a target

5)to be gullible

6)to be cheap

7)to be convenient

8)canteen

9)to refrain from V ing

10) warning

11)to make X feel like Ving

12) to taste good

13)vending machines

14) a couch potato society

15) to make profits

a)a nation that spends a lot and buys a lot

b) to be led to do sthg, to be manipulated

c)firms

d)to be easily influenced

e)to be the person the ad wants to seduce, to be a prey

f)to be easy to do

g)dining-hall

h)to be inexpensive

i)donner envie à X de faire qqchse

j)to order to yourself not to do sthg

k) évitez de manger trop gras, trop sucré, bougez

l)=/= to be disgusting

m)machines where you can buy food

n) a nation of lazy people!

o)to make money

B/Sort out the words in the grid

World market	Junk food

1)free-trade

2)purchasing power

3)to go on a diet

4)low-fat

5)to go bankrupt

6)healthy

7)organic

8)outsourcing (ask factories in poor countries to do some work)

9)well-balanced

10) to compete with

The environment

A/Match the phrases to their equivalents

1)to recycle

2)to pollute

3) pollutant

4)wildlife extinction

5)conservationists

6)balance

7)greenhouse effect

8)renewable energies

9) nuclear waste

10) deforestation

11)tax

12)emissions trading

a)species extinction

b)environment friendly people

c)to endanger the earth

d)chemical

e)global warming

f)sun, wind, rivers...

g) déchets nucléaires

h)équilibre

i)cutting trees

j)money given to the government

k)buying the right to pollute to other countries

l)to re-use a product

B/Associate these words to the correct definition:

to dump

waste

pollutant

an activist

wildlife

species

global warming

balance

environment-friendly

to threaten sthg

to warn X

to recyle

to get involved

to prevent X from doING sthg

1)which is not polluting.

2) to endanger sthg, to put sthg into jeopardy, sthg is under a threat.

3) to throw sthg for example litter in a bin

4) litter, refuse, things in a bin.

5)to tell X that he or she will have problems if they do sthg.

6)a person who fights for a cause

7)a product that pollutes the environment

8)to become aware of a problem and to fight against it.

9)not to get rid of sthg but to transform it for another use

10)animals and plants

11)a particular groups of plants or animals

12)increase of the world’s temperature

13)=/=disorder

14)to stop X from doing sthg

'Discrimination'

A/match the English to the definitions

1) to be on an equal footing

2)to discriminate against X

3)to fight against sthg

4)the law

5) a slave

6) to assert one’s rights= to fight for one’s rights

7) To be discriminated against

8) To lynch X

a)a person who has to work for nothing

b)a text with legal regulations

c)to stand up to sthg

d)to have the same rights

e)to mistreat X

f) to be mistreated

g) to stand up for one’s rights

h). to molest s.o.

hmk for the 17th/04

With the end of the story, complete the commentaries of the extracts by answering the following questions:
Chapter 4: extract about zoos part 3
III and highlights how inhuman Pi’s sufferings were
a) Type “pick up and go” on google and guess its meaning from the site where you land.
b) Find one vocabulary mistake made by the author ;-) (and many other English speakers): guess the meaning of “flaunt” line 25 from the context and type on google, go on grammar.about site and find the correct word
c) Compare Pi’s plight to the situations here: the wild and zoos. How did he survive?
d) Find two semantic fields from line 49 to the end. What are they reminiscent of considering the whole story? What is the tone?

Ch 5
What does it foreshadow about the end of Pi’s account of his life? What are the symbols of this name?

CH6
a) What does the metaphor of the wild sea refer to ?
b) What do the goat and the rhino hint at?

hmk for 17th /04

Go on this blog
http://ahslifeofpi.blogspot.com/2006/07/question-7-chapters-90-91.html
read the answers of some American students (scroll down, garrison's answer is very interesting like the ones under him) and prepare your own answer in 50 words.
Scroll down the page and click on "post a comment" on the American blog.
type the different passwords and your mail address and post your comment. write your full name!
You will be assessed out of /10 for your answer

survivor game: the answers

copy and paste this link to see the answers to the survivor game, be ready to use them for the interview of the bac!
http://www.scribd.com/full/28898464?access_key=key-29333kdq806n45vuqoil