Richard Parker
E125487
Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger who becomes the central animal companion and symbolic figure in Yann Martel’s novel *Life of Pi*.
All labels observed (3)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Richard Parker canonical | 13 |
| Ahab | 1 |
| Richard Parker the tiger | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1105636 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Richard Parker Context triple: [Life of Pi, mainCharacter, Richard Parker]
-
A.
James Crabe
James Crabe was an American cinematographer best known for his work on influential films of the 1970s and 1980s, including the original Rocky.
-
B.
Ahab
Ahab is a biblical king of Israel known for his wicked reign, idolatry, and conflict with the prophet Elijah.
-
C.
Robinson
Robinson is a common English surname borne by numerous notable figures across politics, sports, arts, and other fields.
-
D.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab is the obsessive, vengeful whaling ship captain in Herman Melville’s novel "Moby-Dick," driven to ruin by his monomaniacal pursuit of the white whale.
-
E.
Ishmael
Ishmael is a significant figure in the Abrahamic religions, traditionally regarded as Abraham’s first son and an ancestor of various Arab peoples.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Richard Parker Target entity description: Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger who becomes the central animal companion and symbolic figure in Yann Martel’s novel *Life of Pi*.
-
A.
James Crabe
James Crabe was an American cinematographer best known for his work on influential films of the 1970s and 1980s, including the original Rocky.
-
B.
Ahab
Ahab is a biblical king of Israel known for his wicked reign, idolatry, and conflict with the prophet Elijah.
-
C.
Robinson
Robinson is a common English surname borne by numerous notable figures across politics, sports, arts, and other fields.
-
D.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab is the obsessive, vengeful whaling ship captain in Herman Melville’s novel "Moby-Dick," driven to ruin by his monomaniacal pursuit of the white whale.
-
E.
Ishmael
Ishmael is a significant figure in the Abrahamic religions, traditionally regarded as Abraham’s first son and an ancestor of various Arab peoples.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
fictional character
ⓘ
literary character ⓘ tiger ⓘ |
| adaptedIn |
film Life of Pi (2012)
ⓘ
linked to:
Life of Pi
|
| alsoKnownAs |
Richard Parker the tiger
ⓘ
linked to:
Richard Parker
|
| appearsIn |
Life of Pi
ⓘ
linked to:
Life of Pi (novel)
|
| associatedWithTheme |
faith
ⓘ
human-animal relationship ⓘ storytelling ⓘ survival at sea ⓘ |
| bookPublicationYear | 2001 ⓘ |
| characterType | non-human character ⓘ |
| companionOf | Piscine Molitor Patel ⓘ |
| countryOfFictionalWork | Canada ⓘ |
| createdBy | Yann Martel ⓘ |
| fictionalUniverse | Life of Pi universe ⓘ |
| filmDirectorCollaboration | Ang Lee ⓘ |
| firstAppearance |
novel Life of Pi
ⓘ
linked to:
Life of Pi (novel)
|
| gender | male ⓘ |
| languageOfWork | English ⓘ |
| literaryPeriod | contemporary literature ⓘ |
| medium | novel ⓘ |
| namedAfter | hunter Richard Parker ⓘ |
| nameOrigin | result of clerical error ⓘ |
| narrativeFunction |
ambiguous representation of Pi himself
ⓘ
embodiment of Pi’s primal instincts ⓘ survival symbol ⓘ |
| origin | Pondicherry Zoo ⓘ |
| ownedBy | Pondicherry Zoo ⓘ |
| portrayedBy | CGI tiger in film adaptation ⓘ |
| role |
central animal companion
ⓘ
symbolic figure ⓘ |
| setting | Pacific Ocean ⓘ |
| sharesLifeboatWith |
Pi Patel
ⓘ
hyena ⓘ orangutan ⓘ zebra ⓘ |
| species |
Bengal tiger
ⓘ
linked to:
Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris)
|
| survivesShipwreck | Tsimtsum ⓘ |
| symbolism |
God’s presence as perceived by Pi
ⓘ
Pi’s darker nature ⓘ fear ⓘ will to live ⓘ |
| transportedOn | Tsimtsum ⓘ |
| travelsOn | lifeboat ⓘ |
| travelsWith | Pi Patel ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Richard Parker Description of subject: Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger who becomes the central animal companion and symbolic figure in Yann Martel’s novel *Life of Pi*.
Referenced by (15)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: Richard Parker
linked to: Richard Parker
subject linked to:
Life of Pi (novel)
subject linked to:
Life of Pi (novel)
subject linked to:
Life of Pi (novel)
subject linked to:
Pi