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...

Readers can find the answer to this question near the very end of chapter nine. Chapter nine, narrated by John, is where the readers see John trying to figure out why exactly he is the way that he...

In Lorraine's nightmare, the pig room beckons to her. Despite her apprehension, she is irresistibly drawn to it by unseen forces. In her dream, Lorraine screams for John, but there is no answer....

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...

John bluntly introduces Miss Reillen, the librarian, by explaining that the kids call her "the Cricket" because she "is a little on the fat side, but that doesn't stop her from...

Lorraine and John first become involved with Mr. Pignati when they are prank calling people. Lorraine is supposed to choose a phone number randomly from the phone book, but she chooses a number...

Readers are not actually told the cause of death for Mr. Pignati. We aren't even given a decent description of his final moments in order to check for signs and symptoms of a cause of death. We...

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 narrators, John Conlan and Lorraine Jensen, tell us the story of themselves and the Pigman in an immensely funny style. Hyperbole, which involves exaggerated claims that aren't meant to be...

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,...

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...

Mrs. Jensen is Lorraine's miserable mother in Paul Zindel's The Pigman. Mrs. Jensen is depicted as a cynical, pessimistic woman, who is extremely insecure, hypocritical, and suspicious of her...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

Mr. Pignati is so lonely from missing his dead wife, Conchetta, that he befriends Bobo, a baboon, at the local zoo. Bobo is an ugly, mean baboon, but Mr. Pignati finds him endearing and treats...

Mr. Pignati, John, and Lorraine essentially function as a family unit. Mr. Pignati's wife has died, so he is all alone. John's home life is awful. His father is a drunk that verbally abuses him,...

In Zindel's The Pigman, Mr. Pignati shows affection for John and Lorraine in many ways. He's like the grandfather neither one of them ever had. First, when he meets them at the zoo in chapter 6, he...

From Lorraine's point of view, Norton Kelly is TROUBLE. She says that he "has eyes like a mean mouse, and he's the type of kid who thinks everyone's trying to throw rusty beer cans at him". He's...

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...

When we are first introduced to John, he thinks very little of how his actions might have consequences. He considers himself a bit of a "bad boy" with a devil-may-care attitude. In general, he has...

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...

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...

John and Lorraine shared a friendship since the moment he sat next to her on the bus. It is not until chapter 11, when we discover that John has romantic feelings for Lorraine. Both have developed...

The answer to this question can be found in chapter 1 of Paul Zindel's The Pigman. This chapter is narrated by John, and he begins the chapter by telling readers that he hates school. Actually, I...

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...

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...

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...

In Paul Zindel's novel The Pigman, both John and Lorraine lack attention and affection from their parents. John's father is a trader on the stock exchange, and his high-stress job has taken a...

In addition to the solid metaphors provided by the previous answer, a good example of a metaphor can be found in chapter 13. Chapter 13 is one of the chapters that is narrated by John, and it is...

In the first chapter of Paul Zindel's The Pigman, John is the narrator and he is typing on a typewriter in the school's library. He introduces himself by giving examples of rebellious things that...

Lorraine's father is not in the story. He died six years before the events of the story take place. Lorraine doesn't even remember anything about her father, because Lorraine's mother legally...

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...

When John and Lorraine first visited the Pigman's house, John was blown away by how happy the old man seemed to be to see them, even though it was the first time they had met. He says, "...the...

Readers should look near the beginning of chapter 9 for this answer. Chapter 9 is one of the chapters that is narrated by John, and John admits that Lorraine is correct about John's feelings toward...

There are a couple of reasons why Lorraine is not a fan of Baron Park Zoo. Firstly, she doesn't like seeing all the creatures kept in captivity just so that people can gawk at them. Secondly, she...

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...

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...

Norton is one of John and Lorraine's classmates who discovers that they have been spending a lot of time with Mr. Pignati. Since Norton has developed a talent for stealing things, John does not...

The night that John and Lorraine's relationship changes is the night they stay at Mr. Pignati's house alone. They dress up in the clothes they find, and Lorraine cooks dinner. There are a lot of...

The answer to this question relates to John's family and his parents, and the way that they live such a boring life. His father in particular wants John to work in the stock exchange, like he does,...

John and Lorraine believe that Norton is a big reason for Mr. Pignati's death. In order to establish their case, they bring up Norton's childhood experiences with dolls as proof of his disturbed...

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...

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...