-
The Pigman
A child's relationship with his parents is essential in the formation of future relationships and behaviors. John's parents seem out of touch with him because of their age (his nickname for his mom...
-
The Pigman
The three omens that Lorraine thinks she sees at the zoo are the lady selling peanuts, the peacock, and the kid sitting outside the vampire bat exhibit. She thinks the omens are saying that bad...
-
The Pigman
Mr. Pignati, Lorraine and John all seem to create a second family unit through their friendship and adventures together. Lorraine and John are teenagers who have difficulty at home with parents....
-
The Pigman
Mrs. Jensen, Lorraine's mother, has beautiful long brown hair, and Lorraine says she "is a very pretty woman when she smiles, which is hardly ever". Mrs. Jensen, who works as a caregiver...
-
The Pigman
Mrs. Piganti died of natural causes, probably from a sudden illness because she died before her husband. Although Lorraine is convinced that Mr. Pignati killed his wife and buried her body in the...
-
The Pigman
The cemetery is where John and his friends go to drink, so it is kind of a hang out for them where they can do things they aren't necessarily supposed to do and not get caught. John also finds the...
-
The Pigman
The conflict of a story is defined as the struggle between opposing forces. One way to simplify the struggle is to determine if it is man vs nature, man vs man, man vs self, or so on. For John and...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine and John get involved with Mr. Pignati (the Pigman) through a random telephone prank. They choose him to follow because they are social outcasts themselves and do not have the best...
-
The Pigman
John and Lorraine are not actually arrested, because Mr. Pignati declines to press charges. When the police arrive at the party, however, everyone else had run away except for Lorraine and John,...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine has a dream that she is in Mr. Pignati's house. She is forced to walk into his pig collection room. Once in the room, she sees the pigs on a black coffin. Lorraine believes that the...
-
The Pigman
Mrs. Jensen is the mother of Lorraine Jensen, who is one of the main characters in the book. Mrs. Jensen is a single parent who works as a private-duty nurse and struggles to make ends meet. Her...
-
The Pigman
John and Lorraine's first visit happens in chapter five after they have conned Mr. Pignati over the phone into giving them money for a fake charity. They show up to collect the money from the poor...
-
The Pigman
Both John and Lorraine change a great deal over the course of the book. What is great about this book is that the chapters alternate between those two characters telling the story, so readers get...
-
The Pigman
One striking metaphor in The Pigman is in the following passage: "And when I came up to the cage to see these ugly blood-sucking creatures, I had to look right into this little kid’s face that had...
-
The Pigman
Mrs. Conlan unfortunately doesn't do much about letting her opinion on John's drinking and smoking be known. She does things like interrupt every argument with a trivial offer of a pleasantry or...
-
The Pigman
In chapter nine, John goes to the cemetery to have a beer with Norton like they often do. The two get into an argument because Norton threatens to rob Mr. Pignati if John doesn't tell him more...
-
The Pigman
In The Pigman by Paul Zindel, John Conlan tells the reader that he hates school in the opening paragraph of the novel; however, he doesn't give specific reasons for his feelings. Instead, he...
-
The Pigman
John’s news is that Mrs. Pignati was dead. When John tells Lorraine that Pigman’s (Mr. Pignati’s) wife was dead, she is suspicious. To her, he is just a funny, harmless old man. “His wife’s...
-
The Pigman
Norton is curious about Mr. Pignati because he wants to exploit the old man. He wonders if the Pigman "has...got anything worth stealing", and is excited when John tries to divert his interest by...
-
The Pigman
In The Pigman, by Paul Zindel, John and Lorraine are having a party at the Pigman's house, but it gets out of hand. There are about forty people there, some of whom weren't even invited, and of...
-
The Pigman
Mr. Pignati’s first heart attack is caused by over-exerting himself while skating with John and Lorraine. John and Lorraine (the kids who have entered Mr. Pignati’s home under false pretences),...
-
The Pigman
John and Lorraine have a party at Mr. Pignati's place while he is at the hospital, and the party quickly gets out of hand. Everyone is drunk, and John and some others don roller skates and dance on...
-
The Pigman
Dennis Kobin is a friend of John and Lorraine. He is usually paired with Norton Kelly, and the two are described as "demented", and are always causing trouble. Of the pair, Dennis is the...
-
The Pigman
John is friends with Norton and Dennis before meeting Lorraine. They take her on as the fourth friend in their group and include her in drinking beer with them in the cemetery at a place called...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine's perspective of John is sweet and kind. She feels like he portrays himself worse that he really is. For example, John writes the first chapter and talks about him smoking, swearing,...
-
The Pigman
In chapter two of Zindel's The Pigman, Lorraine discusses a couple of the female teachers and happens to share an anecdote about the typing teacher Miss Stewart. Apparently, Lorraine had gone to...
-
The Pigman
John and Lorraine first met on the bus on the way to school. He sat down next to her which made her at first feel uncomfortable. He almost immediately began laughing, so she thought he was making...
-
The Pigman
I think Lorraine bought her mother stockings with the Pigman's money because she knows her mother needs some, and, despite their differences, she loves her mother and wants to help her...
-
The Pigman
Every novel uses literary devices to some extent, and Paul Zindel's The Pigman is no exception. I have included a link to the eNotes Guide to Literary Terms so you can see the wide range of...
-
The Pigman
It's no secret that John and Norton are enemies. "Lorraine told you she thinks Norton and I hate each other. It's true," (90). Although John may drink and smoke, he's a good person at heart. Norton...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine feels a degree of sympathy for her mother because she is an empathetic young girl, and she knows her mother really does have a difficult life. Lorraine's mother is working at a job she...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine's mother got a legal separation from her father about the time she was born. Sadly, if that wasn't bad enough, her father died when Lorraine was nine. Lorraine explains it as follows: "I...
-
The Pigman
John and Lorraine become friends with the Pigman - real name Mr Pignati - in a rather unusual way, by playing a trick on him. Bored and dissatisfied with their lives, John and Lorraine, along with...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine's feelings for John change slightly through the novel. At the beginning of the story, it is clear that Lorraine thinks of John as a friend. She thinks he is an attractive friend, but...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine hates the Baron Park Zoo because she does not enjoy seeing the animals caged up and she feels that the park attendants are often detached and unmotivated caretakers who complete the...
-
The Pigman
The scene where John and Lorraine meet their two friends at the cemetery appears in chapter seven of Paul Lindel's The Pigman. By this time in the story, John and Lorraine have secretly separated...
-
The Pigman
Bobo the baboon apparently died of pneumonia. After Mr. Pignati comes home from the hospital to find his house trashed because of a party that John and Lorraine had thrown there, the two teenagers...
-
The Pigman
John is talking about their group's habit of hanging out at the cemetery to drink. He is saying that Masterson's Tomb, the specific place where they like to meet, is a great place to be in the...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine is very observant and very compassionate. One reason that she may watch others so closely is because she has always been closely watched by her mother. Her mother is very critical of...
-
The Pigman
The chapters in Paul Zindel's The Pigman alternate between narrators John and Lorraine, so nothing is said by John about Lorraine's mother in chapter 11. Chapter 10, however, is where Lorraine...
-
The Pigman
While snooping around the stranger's home, John finds a statement, or bill, from the funeral home entitled "Authorization of Services" (66). The statement gives The Silver Lake company permission...
-
The Pigman
In chapter 12, John and Lorraine confess to Mr. Pignati that they are not members of the "L & J Fund" afterall. Their guilt has gotten the better of them as they have grown to care for Mr....
-
The Pigman
John and Lorraine are telling the story of the Pigman, Mr. Pignati, whom they met and grew to care about. The story is told by both of them, so that you get two perspectives on the events. In some...
-
The Pigman
Miss Reillen is the librarian at Franklin High School, where John and Lorraine are students. Since both John and Lorraine have seventh-period study at the library, they see Miss Reillen everyday....
-
The Pigman
Chapter 6 in Paul Zindel's The Pigman is when John and Lorraine meet Mr. Pignati at the Baron Park Zoo. Lorraine doesn't like zoos anyway because she can't stand seeing the animals locked up and...
-
The Pigman
In Zindel's The Pigman, John and Lorraine meet Mr. Pignati at the zoo in the middle of chapter 6. While waiting for Mr. Pignati to arrive, John watches the sea-lion pool. This is when Lorraine...
-
The Pigman
1. Parental Relations - Both John and Lorraine have poor relationships with their parents, who regard them as disturbing burdens. John's parents regard him as a disturbance that must be...
-
The Pigman
Lorraine's mother is a single mom who works fulltime as a hospice nurse. When Lorraine was little, her mother had just gotten a divorce from her cheating husband when he was involved in a car crash...
-
The Pigman
In The Pigman John and Lorraine attend the same high school. They meet for the first time on the school bus one morning. Lorraine's a bit of a loner; none of the boys are interested in her and no...
-
The Pigman
In Chapter 9 of Paul Zindel's The Pigman, the protagonist John Conlan reflects on how it was really due to his father's influence that John himself became a heavy drinker and how his mother doesn't...