Newspaper Article: Slumdog gets lucky

On the 13th of September, the 18 year old Slumdog Jamal Malik won the popular competition ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ and against all odds has gone home with the 20 million Rupees. The circumstances seemed highly suspicious according to officials and he was suspected of winning the competition through means of cheating.

The Police had said that they were working on uncovering the truth to how a Slumdog had known the answers to questions that not even professionals in their field did not know the answers to.Jamal stated that he knew the answers to the questions asked because of past experiences he had learned from, all the questions asked had relevance to his life according to Jamal in an interrogation held yesterday.

Although the possibility of Jamal having genuinely known all the answers should not be ruled out it is necessary that an investigation is in order. More information will be released as the investigation on the ordeal continues.

-George Hadjidakis

Newspaper Article – The Impact of a Slumdog

Slumdog millionaire a story of young man living in the slums of India and overcoming the obstacles that life throws at him not only did he overcome them but exceeded expectations of all that came across his path.

This story of a boy coming from a poor back round, is sadly the reality of many third world countries around us. But the fact that young Jamal was able to turn his life around by one single chance. Should give those in a real life situation the chance believe that their life is in their hands and that they  just have to make to do with what they have and overcome the obstacles that lie ahead.

Sure this story is about romance and drama, its meant to entertain the audience, but that does not take the fact away that this is not happening around us. People who live in the slums suffer from problems like these every day and it is a on going problem in society today.

Every person deserves a chance to make something big of themselves whether you live in the slums or live in a shack in Dunoon.  Everyone deserves a chance.

by Jake Smit

Newspaper Article – Slumdog Millionaire

Infographic – Setting

Plot: Slumdog vs Life of Pi

Life of pi and slumdog millionaire are two very interesting and intellectually advanced stories. Which hold many similarities as well as differences in the storyline.

Both Life of pi and slumdog millionaire written in a similar way, both were written in first person but were both narrated by older version of themselves. Both of the stories spoke of there past leading up to the future.

Both Pi an Jamal the main characters of the two stories were stripped from there family members and left to look after themselves. Pi’s family drowned in a shipwreck, and jamals mother was killed and Salim and Latika left him for a period of time.

The difference between these two stories is that Jamal was a orphan for pretty much his whole life and lived in poor conditions and Pi was very privileged to live in a world where he didn’t have to steal or do any crime to survive.

A noticeable difference in these to stories is that slumdog millionaire was Largely based on romance, where as life of Pi was based on drama and suffering leaving a different type of feeling to the audience or reader.

These two stories may be different to each other, but they both show very unique similarities to each other that most stories may not have.

by jake smit

 

Newspaper Article – Easy As Pi (By Skyler du Toit)

There has just been an amazing story uncovered about an amazing young man who survived 227 days on a lifeboat alone with a Bengal tiger. This the story of young Piscine ‘Pi’ Patel, after the ship him and his family were on, the Tsimtsum, sunk during a major storm on it’s course to Canada where Piscine’s father wanted to start a zoo.

Piscine tells us two stories and tells the reader to believe the one that think actually happened but he says that the one will make you believe in God. The first story that Pi tells us is that in the beginning along with Pi and Richard Parker, the tiger, there was also a zebra, an orangutan and a hyena although the second story may sound more believable as there is no animals on the boat with Pi but instead it is his fellow castaways.

He leaves this up to you to decide as he says some people will not believe the one but if you believe in God its an easy choice. This is an unbelievable story about a young man defying all the odds to survive through this tough journey.

Protagonists and Antagonists

Protagonists

A protagonist is one of the major characters in a novel or film who is also the one that overcomes the major problem in the novel or film.

Piscine Molitor Patel

• Pi is the Protagonist in the novel Life Of Pi.
• He uses all his general knowledge and the knowledge of animals because his father owned a zoo to his advantage when he gets stranded on the lifeboat with a tiger.

Jamal Malik

•  Jamal is the protagonist of the movie Slumdog Millionaire.
•  Jamal uses his past experiences and the knowledge he has gained from this to his advantage on the show, Who Wants To Be a Millionaire.
•  Jamal escapes from Javed’s grasp before he is blinded and spends the rest of the movie running away from him.

Antagonists

An antagonist is another one of the main characters in the film or novel but in this case is the one opposing the protagonist causing problems and making it harder for the protagonist to overcome these issues.

Richard Parker

• Richard Parker is the antagonist in the novel Life Of Pi.
• Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger that is on the lifeboat with Pi.
• Richard Parker is one of the main obstacles that Pi has to overcome to survive for the 227 days that he did.

Javed Kahn

• Javed Kahn is one of the antagonists in the film Slumdog Millionaire.
• Javed is the crime boss.
• He uses children to beg for him on the streets as well as blinds them so that they can make more money.

Prem Kumar

• Prem Kumar is another antagonist in the film Slumdog Millionaire.
• Prem is the game show host that is insistent that Jamal does not win the prize money.

Jamal v.s. Pi Comparison

 Jamal

• Lived in the slums
• Orphan
• Betrayed by his brother
• Won 20 million rupees
• Was a beggar
• Wanted to do better
• In love with Latika
• Good character
• Tortured
  • Severe conditions
• Does not let his bad situations get to him
• Can find the positive in all situations
• Lost his mother
• Part of an act of murder
• Searching for something (Latika)
• Resourceful (using all his past experiences)

Pi

• • Middle class family
  • Lived in Pondicherry
  • Learnt about religion from an early age
  • Intelligent
  • Loved animals
  • Lost his family in shipwreck
  • Developed strong connection with Richard Parker
  • Accepted his fate
  • Overcame all odds because he accepted fate.
  • Survives
  • Has near death experiences
  • Good swimmer
  • Was searching for something (a way to survive
  • Resourceful (uses his general knowledge)

Comparisons

• Pi and Jamal both went through the loss of their families although Pi lost his whole family and Jamal only lost his mother and in a way Jamal’s brother, Salim, betrayed him and left him alone.
• Pi was fearless on the ocean as he thought he had no hope so he just carried on with life as normal as he could. Jamal on the other hand saw the good in every situation and stood up for what he believed in.
• Both the characters are very resourceful even though it is in different ways such as Pi being resourceful by using all his common knowledge and all his knowledge about animals to survive on the lifeboat with a tiger. Jamal is resourceful by using his past experiences to his advantage to win the 20 million rupees.
• Both of the characters were put into difficult situations and both of them overcame these situations in their own personal ways using all the possible resources to their advantage.

Life of Pi vs Slumdog millionaire