Life of Pi

Frame Narrative

What is a Frame Narrative?

In a nutshell, a frame
narrative is a story within a
story

Examples of Frame
Narratives

Titanic (the movie)

The story of Old Rose
revisiting the site of the
Titanic bookends the love
story of Jack and Young
Rose onboard the ship in
1912

Forrest Gump
Forrest (in the present)
is telling his life story
(of Forrest in the past)
to various citizens on
the park bench

Can you think of any

other examples?

Another way to view FRAME

NARRATIVES...
We can look at frame narratives as a
diagram
For example, with Titanic:
Love story of Young
Rose and Jack

Frame Narrative in
Life of Pi
Martel uses a FRAME NARRATIVE
Martel is the real author of the novel, Life
of Pi
The story begins with an Authors Note,
narrated by an anonymous author figure
This creates the illusion that the book is
fact/real, when in fact it is FICTIONAL
Why do you think he may have done this?

Frame Narrative in
Life of Pi
The italicized passages are the
voice of an anonymous author who
is writing a story, told in Pis own
words
These passages provide a
description of how he learned about
Pi, as well as his interviews with Pi
in the present day.

Frame Narrative in
Life of Pi
The story has THREE narrative layers (plus a

mystery layer...)
The author of the novel itself, Yann Martel
The author of the Authors Note (who is talking
about meeting with Francis (Mamaji) Adirubasamy
and interviewing real Pi while researching for
the novel
Piscine Molitor Patel in present day who is
narrating the story of his younger self
There is one more narrative layer or voice to this
story that is yet to be discovered. See if you can
figure it out by the end of the novel

Frame Narrative in
Life of Pi
Now that we have all the layers or voices for our FRAME
NARRATIVE, draw a diagram to represent them

Yann
Martel

Authors
Note
Pi Patel the
Narrator

So what is the purpose of a

Frame Narrative?
The shifts in point of view (POV) serve
to create a sense of verisimilitude
Verisimilitude the appearance of
something to be real or true when
what we are reading appears to be true

So what is the purpose of a

Frame Narrative?

So what is the purpose of a

Frame Narrative?
Willing suspension of disbelief
when a reader/viewer temporarily and
willingly sets aside their beliefs about
reality in order to enjoy the makebelieve of a play, novel, poem or movie
e.g. We can watch Harry Potter
without feeling gullible as long as we,
the audience, set aside our sense of
what is real for the duration of the
movie.