Abstract

Life of Pi by Yann Martel, a Canadian writer, won the British Booker Prize in 2002. In 2012, the famous director Ang Lee made this novel into a film, which aroused people’s attention to this novel again. The novel tells a story of how a young boy named Pi shares a lifeboat with a fully-grown Bengal tiger called Richard Parker in the Pacific Ocean for 227 day and finally survives.
Although Life of Pi ostensibly tells us an adventurous story, it actually contains a lot of metaphors in this novel. Behind the adventurous story is a deeper philosophical and allegorical story. This paper provides a brief analysis of three kinds of metaphors to reveal the philosophy in Life of Pi.
The paper consists of five parts. The first part is a brief introduction to the novel and the author Yann Martel. The second part focuses on the definition of the metaphor and literary metaphor. The third part analyzes the metaphors of two main characters—Pi and the tiger. The fourth part studies the metaphors of scenes, including Pondicherry, Lonely Boat on the Ocean and Cannibal Island. The fifth part makes a detailed analysis of metaphors of names—Mr. Satish Kumar, Richard Parker and Tsimtsum. Finally, the paper discusses the function of all the metaphors in the novel and also analyzes the deeper philosophical thinking and the revelation to people brought by these metaphors. 

Key words: Life of Pi; metaphor; philosophical thinkin

摘  要

《少年派的奇幻漂流》是加拿大作家扬-马尔特的著作，曾获得2002年英国布克奖。2012年被著名导演李安翻拍成了电影，再次掀起了对小说的关注热潮。小说讲述了一个名叫派的印度少年与一只成年孟加拉虎在南太平洋历时227天后重获新生的故事。
小说表面上看似讲述一个历险故事，但其中运用了多处隐喻，在历险故事的背后隐藏着一个更深层的哲理和寓言故事。本文主要分析《少年派的奇幻漂流》中的三种隐喻,来揭示书中的哲学思想。
本文分为五个部分。第一部分简单介绍小说的主要内容和作者扬-马尔特。第二部分阐述一般隐喻和文学隐喻的定义。第三部分分析了派和老虎这两个主要角色的角色隐喻。第四部分分析了小说中的场景隐喻，包括本地治里，沧海孤舟和食人岛。第五部分主要分析了小说中的名字隐喻，包括库尔马先生，理查德-帕克和“齐姆楚姆”。最后，讨论了上述三种隐喻在小说中的作用，并分析其中隐喻之下所体现的哲理思考，以及对人的启示。

关键词：少年派的奇幻漂流；隐喻；哲理思考