The Pigman Essay, Research Paper

The Pigman Theme Essay

In the novel The Pigman by Paul Zindel, many themes appear throughout the book. However, the most prominent are: older people can be friends but shouldn’t be looked at as parent figures, platonic relationships should stay strictly platonic, and the last main theme is: underage drinking and smoking are very harmful. Some of these are themes one might not expect to see in a book such as The Pigman, yet are as imminent as the characters themselves.

The first theme involves older people and friendships with them. Since this book was mainly about kids making friends with an older man, examples are plentiful. The following is an example of John Conlan’s poor relationship with his parents, because of the time he spent with Mr. Pignati: “My mother started her high frequency cackling, but it was Bore who got on my nerves.”(pg.136). John doesn’t even know what his parents told him, let alone care about it. However, if asked about his conversation with Mr. Pignati, John would tell everything with incredible accuracy. This shows that when you look up to your adult friends like a parent, your relationship with your actual parents begin to drift.

The second theme from The Pigman is that platonic relationships should stay platonic and not become anything more. A good example of what happens can be found on page 108. In this segment, John and Lorraine are dressed up and they start goofing around and then they kiss. As soon as this happens, they both get really quiet and decide to go downstairs and eat dinner. Originally John and Lorraine were just friends, then as soon as it started to become something more, it became very uncomfortable and they quickly moved to something else. When two very good friends both know when something gets weird, it shows that both of them aren’t ready to become more than Friends.

The third theme runs throughout most of the novel. It’s alcohol and how it effects under-age drinkers. A good example of this can be found on page 131. ON this page john blurts out “not one cent for tribute!” Furthermore, despite john’s drunk babbling, this scene takes place in a police car, enough consequence to prove this theme. Also when he gets home he is so drunk and dazed that he has no idea what is going on or how much his father is disappointed in him. All these are reasons enough not to drink and these examples illustrate it beautifully.

All in all, of the many themes crammed into 149 pages, the three themes mentioned earlier are the most applicable to modern kids. As stated earlier all the examples were taken from the novel the pigman. All in all, the themes in this book are many and close together, and if more people read this book, people would have a much better view of older people as parental figures, keeping their platonic relationships platonic, and not to drink at a young age. This book has certainly helped me with these issues.

Bibliography

Zindel, Paul. Pigman.