John and Lorraine are typical teenagers: they think nobody understands them, they detest the way adults talk down to them, they feel alienated from their peers, and they’re often consumed with intense feelings of uncertainty, sadness, and loneliness. In fact, until Mr. Pignati enters their lives, they are each other’s only real friend. But the novel suggests that loneliness isn’t unique to adolescence; to the contrary, it portrays loneliness as a fundamental part of the human experience, affecting people of all ages and walks of life. John and Lorraine don’t plan on becoming friends with Mr. Pignati—at first, they only visit him to follow up on a prank phone call they happened to place to his number, chosen at random out of a phone book. But despite this, they continue visiting him and forge a meaningful relationship with the elderly, grieving widower, who is desperate for companionship in the aftermath of his wife Conchetta’s death—until John and Lorraine enter his life, his sole companion is Bobo, a rather unfriendly baboon he regularly visits and feeds peanuts to at the zoo. Though they make an unlikely trio, in time, Mr. Pignati, John, and Lorraine form a close bond that helps all three overcome the loneliness and sadness that used to dominate their lives, and they start to be happier and more hopeful about the future.
Of course, this happiness is ultimately short-lived: John and Lorraine throw a raucous party at Mr. Pignati’s house that gets out of hand and results in the destruction of Mr. Pignati’s cherished collection of pig figurines. The incident devastates Mr. Pignati and irreparably damages his relationship with John and Lorraine. And when the teens try to make amends with Mr. Pignati, who clearly misses their company despite the hurt their actions have caused him, Mr. Pignati’s beloved baboon Bobo dies suddenly, and the shock of yet another devastating loss leads him to suffer a fatal heart attack. In effect, then, he dies of despair and loneliness. Mr. Pignati’s tragic fate demonstrates how deeply loneliness can affect a person’s life. Still, while loneliness affects most everyone, forming and maintaining close relationships with others—even imperfect ones—can help alleviate some of the pain that loneliness causes.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Loneliness ThemeTracker
Loneliness Quotes in The Pigman
Then he started that laughing again. Very quietly at first, and boy, did it burn me! And then I decided I was going to let out a little laugh, so I did. Then he laughed a little louder, and I laughed a little louder, and before I knew what was happening I couldn’t stand it, so I really started laughing, and he started laughing, and we laughed so much the whole bus thought we were out of our minds.
John told you about Dennis and Norton, but I don’t think he got across how really disturbed those two boys are. Norton 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. And he’s pretty big, even bigger than John, and the two of them hate each other.
Actually, Norton is a social outcast. He’s been a social outcast since his freshman year in high school when he got caught stealing a bag of marshmallows from the supermarket. He never recovered from that because they put his name in the newspaper and mentioned that the entire loot was a bag of marshmallows, and ever since then everybody calls him The Marshmallow Kid.
There was something about his voice that made me feel sorry for him, and I began to wish I had never bothered him. He just went on talking and talking, and the receiver started to hurt my ear. By this time Dennis and Norton had gone into the living room and started to watch TV, but right where they could keep an eye on timing the phone call. John stayed next to me, pushing his ear close to the receiver every once in awhile, and I could see the wheels in his head spinning.
“You never wanted to visit lonely people before, or is it that you only like lonely people who have ten dollars?”
“You think you’re the perfect headshrinker with all those psychology books you read, and you really don’t know a thing.”
“How long has she been gone?” Lorraine asked, trying to be kind, in that English accent of hers.
“She’s been out there about a month now.”
For a moment he looked as though he was going to cry, and then suddenly he changed the subject. Lorraine’s nervous radar was in full operation, and I could tell it made her sad to look at the old man.
The thing that made me stop going to the zoo a few years ago was the way one attendant fed the sea lions. He climbed up on the big diving platform in the middle of the pool and unimaginatively just dropped the fish into the water. I mean, if you’re going to feed sea lions, you’re not supposed to plop the food into the tank. You can tell by the expressions on their faces that the sea lions are saying things like
“Don’t dump the fish in!”
“Pick the fish up one by one and throw them into the air so we can chase after them.”
“Throw the fish in different parts of the tank!”
“Let’s have fun!”
“Make a game out of it!”
Then I heard this “Uggauggaboo,” and I’ll be darned if it wasn’t Mr. Pignati starting in. And before you knew it, all three of us were going Uggauggaboo, and we had Bobo, two chimps, and the gorilla worked up into such a tizzy I thought the roof of the monkey house was going to fall in.
Then I got very sad because I knew I wasn’t really wondering about the guy underneath me, whoever he was. I was just interested in what was going to happen to me. I think that’s probably the real reason I go to the graveyard. I’m not afraid of seeing ghosts. I think I’m really looking for ghosts. I want to see them. I’m looking for anything to prove that when I drop dead there’s a chance I’ll be doing something a little more exciting than decaying.
I had become a disturbing influence, as they say. If I light up a cigarette, all my mother’s really worried about is that I’m going to burn a hole in the rug. If I want a beer, she’s worried I’m not going to rinse the glass out.
By the time we left, I was so glad to see the outside world I thought I had been in prison for seventy-three years. The smell of hospitals always makes me think of death. In fact I think hospitals are exactly what grave-yards are supposed to be like. They ought to bury people in hospitals and let sick people get well in the cemeteries.
The room was very dark though I could make out the shapes of pigs all around me. But instead of being on a table the pigs were arranged on a long black container, and as I started to realize what it was the fingers propelling my legs tightened and moved me closer. I felt the same horrible force taking control of my arms, and I couldn’t stop my hands from moving down to the lid of the box. When I touched it my hands went cold, and I knew I was about to open a coffin. I started to cry and plead and call to God to stop me as the lid began to rise.
“My father says I have to go to a psychiatrist.”
“He’ll forget about it in a day or two,” I reminded him.
“I know.”
