Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Pigman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Death and Grief
Personal Responsibility
Family
Loneliness
Compassion
Summary
Analysis
John narrates this chapter. He immediately knows that Mr. Pignati has had a heart attack and calls an ambulance. When one “snotty cop” asks John who he and Lorraine are to Mr. Pignati, John quickly claims that they’re his kids. He does his best to answer the rest of the authorities’ questions, lying when he doesn’t know an answer. But the police are “so dumb” that they have no idea he’s lying.
John’s poor attitude toward the police in this section follows his pattern of having an issue with authority figures. But in this context, it also reflects his troubled inner state: it seems that he’s so worried about Mr. Pignati—and unable to fully process those feelings—that he misdirects those bad feelings outward, presenting them as animosity toward the police.
Themes
After the police leave, Lorraine yells at John for going up the stairs with roller skates on. John tells her she sounds like his Old Lady, but the remark clearly wounds Lorraine, and John immediately feels sorry for saying it. Though John could use a few beers to settle down, staying at Mr. Pignati’s empty house makes John and Lorraine anxious, so they head out and take a walk through the cemetery instead.
In this passage, the cemetery is the elephant in the room, representing the difficult truth that John and Lorraine can’t confront right now: the possibility that Mr. Pignati could die.
Themes
The next day, John and Lorraine cut class and go to St. Ambrose Hospital to visit Mr. Pignati. Lorraine looks ridiculous carrying a large bouquet of gladiolas. Much to their surprise, Mr. Pignati looks great—though John knows this is common among people who’ve had heart attacks, and it’s very dangerous, as they can overexert themselves and have another heart attack and die. After the nurse who escorted John and Lorraine inside leaves, John says they had to pretend they were Mr. Pignati’s kids to visit him, which seems to make Mr. Pignati happy. They engage in small talk for a time, though Lorraine remains distracted by the very elderly, very sick-looking man in the bed next to Pignati’s.
John revealed at the very beginning of his and Lorraine’s confession that Mr. Pignati died sometime before John and Lorraine began to write their confession. In light of this, John’s remark here about the pattern of people suffering second, fatal heart attacks could foreshadow Mr. Pignati’s eventual death. Lorraine is distracted by the man next to Mr. Pignati because in his sickly state he represents one outcome of Mr. Pignati’s time in the hospital—that is, Mr. Pignati’s health could deteriorate, and he could die. The man forces Lorraine to confront the ugly possibility of death, and she’s not comfortable with this.
Themes
Mr. Pignati asks the teens if the house is okay, and Lorraine hurriedly retrieves the keys from her pocket to return to Mr. Pignati. Mr. Pignati insists that she and John keep the keys in case they want to hang around the house and watch TV. Lorraine tries to protest, but John cuts her off, glaring at her. Before they leave, Mr. Pignati asks the teens to stop by the zoo and say hi to Bobo, and they agree.
This scene further establishes John’s and Lorraine’s different personalities. Though John has grown far more considerate and thoughtful than he was at the start of the story, he’s still quite selfish and mostly acts out of self-interest, seizing on Mr. Pignati’s offer to hang out as his house without considering that this might be rude. At the same time, John’s selfishness is somewhat understandable, as Mr. Pignati’s house has become something of a safe haven for John—a place he can go to escape his unstable home life.
Themes
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John and Lorraine leave the hospital, and John is excited to see the outside world. He hates hospitals and thinks that cemeteries would be better atmospheres for sick people to recover in. At this point, John addresses the audience, explaining that Lorraine blames him for everything that happens from here on out—and he thinks that she might be right to blame him.
John perhaps hates hospitals because they’re filled with the threat of death, a fear that John finds difficult to push out of his mind under normal circumstances, much less in a place full of sick and potentially dying people. The cemetery, by contrast, is rather comforting in its certainty. Finally, this passage builds intrigue, leaving readers to wonder what John did to make Lorraine blame him for the events that follow (presumably alluding to Mr. Pignati’s death).
Themes
Things start off okay—John finds some spaghetti sauce and vermicelli in the kitchen, so he “let[s] the little homemaker go ahead” and make them dinner. As she cooks, Lorraine talks about missing “him,” and John asks who. Lorraine says John knows who she’s talking about. Inwardly, John thinks it feels strange to be inside Mr. Pignati’s house without Mr. Pignati.
This is another passage that hasn’t aged all that well; John and Lorraine are supposed to be friends, which implies that they’re equals, and yet John seems to expect Lorraine to perform the conventionally female, “homemaker” task of preparing dinner—and then he mocks her for it. This passage also further demonstrates John’s inability to confront the possibility that Mr. Pignati could die—it seems that he’s so scared of anything happening to Mr. Pignati that he can’t even bring himself to speak Mr. Pignati’s name aloud to Lorraine.
Themes
After a while, John goes upstairs. He pulls one of Mr. Pignati’s old, shiny blue suits out of the closet. The suit is ridiculously big on John, but when he looks at himself in the mirror, he feels like a famous actor. To complete the look, he finds a makeup pencil and draws a moustache above his lip. When John returns to the kitchen, Lorraine tells him he looks great.
It seems that John has put on Mr. Pignati’s suit to cheer himself and Lorraine up since they both miss Mr. Pignati. At the same time, though, it’s rather inconsiderate of John to go through Mr. Pignati’s things without his permission, and this demonstrates John’s continued immaturity and disregard for others.
Themes
Lorraine flashes a mischievous smile and heads upstairs, telling John she’ll be right back. Lorraine is upstairs for a long time, much to John’s annoyance—he has to keep turning the burner on and off so that the sauce doesn’t boil over and burn. But just when he’s about to lose his cool, he hears Lorraine’s sensuous voice coming from the stairs. John turns and sees Lorraine wearing one of Conchetta’s old white dresses that has an exceedingly low neckline. John says Lorraine looks amazing. Then he grunts like Bobo and runs after her. Lorraine laughs and runs upstairs. She tells John to stop, running inside the bedroom and shutting the door behind her, trying to keep it shut. But John forces it open and runs inside.
This is yet another instance in which Lorraine goes along with something that John does—even though she might not agree with it. Given Lorraine’s initial hesitance to accept Mr. Pignati’s keys in the first place, it’s unlikely she would’ve gone through Conchetta’s things—a far more personal invasion of Mr. Pignati’s privacy—if John hadn’t prompted her to do so. Though Lorraine is usually more considerate of Mr. Pignati’s feelings than John, she repeatedly lets John influence her behavior, and as a result she becomes just as complicit as John in disrespecting and possibly hurting Mr. Pignati.
Themes
Inside the bedroom, John and Lorraine are laughing hard. John demands one kiss. Lorraine tells John to stop and starts laughing. John “stop[s] it by putting [his] lips on hers.” It’s their first kiss, and they both realize they’re no longer acting. After a pause, Lorraine says they should go back downstairs. John says okay. Downstairs, John pours them glasses of wine. They look at each other in silence, and then they finally toast, “To the Pigman.”
Contemporary readers may find that this passage, too, hasn’t aged well. Though Lorraine’s feelings for John are rather ambiguous, here she clearly tells him to stop chasing her—and he forcibly kisses her anyway. The book doesn’t seem to portray John’s behavior as problematic, yet he clearly disregards her feelings to act on his own feelings, and that’s not something that should happen in a healthy friendship or romantic relationship.
Themes
