Mrs. Bigio Character Analysis in The Wednesday Wars

Mrs. Bigio is the school cook at Camillo Junior High School. Though her lunches leave a lot to be desired, she's a skilled pastry chef and all the students covet her cupcakes. Her husband, a soldier in Vietnam, dies in November. Holling witnesses Mrs. Bigio's grief when she seeks out Mrs. Baker on a Wednesday afternoon, and he declares he'll never forget the sounds of her sadness. Mrs. Bigio struggles with her grief for months. Her cooking suffers, and she becomes sharp and cruel to all the students but especially Mai Thi, whom Mrs. Bigio treats like a scapegoat. Holling, however, notices that when Mrs. Bigio is cruel to Mai Thi, both Mai Thi and Mrs. Bigio cry. Finally, after she notices other students beginning to bully Mai Thi, Mrs. Bigio apologizes and begins to cook Vietnamese treats and food, and even tries her best to pronounce the Vietnamese words properly. When she joins Mrs. Baker's class on their final camping trip, she invites Mai Thi to come live with her.

Mrs. Bigio Quotes in The Wednesday Wars

The The Wednesday Wars quotes below are all either spoken by Mrs. Bigio or refer to Mrs. Bigio. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Houghton Mifflin edition of The Wednesday Wars published in 2007.

Everyone—except for Caliban—is happy, and everyone is forgiven, and everyone is fine, and they all sail away on calm seas. Happy endings.

That's how it is in Shakespeare.

But Shakespeare was wrong.

Sometimes there isn't a Prospero to make everything fine again.

And sometimes the quality of mercy is strained.

Related Characters: (speaker), , ,

Page Number and Citation: 50

Explanation and Analysis:

"Pick it up and be glad you're getting it. You shouldn't even be here, sitting like a queen in a refugee home while American boys are sitting in swamps on Christmas Day. They're the ones who should be here. Not you."

Mai Thi took her Something. She looked down, and kept going.

She probably didn't see that Mrs. Bigio was pulling her hairnet down lower over her face, because she was almost crying.

Related Characters: (speaker), ,

Page Number and Citation: 95

Explanation and Analysis:

Mrs. Bigio Character Timeline in The Wednesday Wars

The timeline below shows where the character Mrs. Bigio appears in The Wednesday Wars. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

The Vietnam War and Political Unrest Theme Icon

Holling enters the kitchen on the first floor, prepared for the usual "fumes" of Mrs. Bigio 's questionable food, but the kitchen smells like buttery pastries. He looks in awe at... (full context)

...realized that Mrs. Baker would never play a practical joke, and they settled for demoting Mrs. Bigio from her position as the Official Cook of the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers. In tears,... (full context)

Holling thanks Mrs. Baker for the cream puffs, and she smiles at him. Suddenly, Mrs. Bigio enters the classroom. She leans on the doorway, trembling. Mrs. Baker asks if they found... (full context)

...Holling lurks backstage and scans the audience for faces he knows. He finds Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Bigio , and Danny Hupfer's parents. This is shocking: Holling reasons that the Hupfers must not... (full context)

...be special. Lunch, however, is even worse than usual, but Holling doesn't complain. He remembers Mrs. Bigio 's grief and says nothing when she snaps at students who stop to inspect their... (full context)

...other teachers drill their students all morning in preparation for the tests until lunchtime, when Mrs. Bigio enters the room with a tray filled with cups of hot chocolate. Mrs. Bigio walks... (full context)

On Valentine's Day, Mr. Guareschi announces that Mrs. Bigio baked Valentine's Day cupcakes, and class representatives can pick them up at 1 P.M. Mrs.... (full context)

...as they believe Vietnamese people eat rats. This continues until one day at lunch, when Mrs. Bigio hands Mai Thi her lunch. A penitentiary eighth grader asks loudly if Mrs. Bigio has... (full context)

...him to Washington, D.C. because they're so proud. The day he returns, Mrs. Baker and Mrs. Bigio come into Mrs. Baker's class with nuoc mau, a Vietnamese dessert of fried bananas. When... (full context)

Mrs. Bigio arrives as the students are busy fighting off the mosquitos. Fortunately, she has a can... (full context)

Holling and Meryl Lee again wash the pots, and they're still at the river when Mrs. Bigio and Mai Thi arrive to wash the knives. Mrs. Bigio tells Mai Thi that she's... (full context)

Holling doesn't sleep that night. He watches the stars and thinks about Mai Thi, Mrs. Bigio , Lieutenant Baker, Danny, and how in five years, he'll have to register for the... (full context)

...the full synagogue at his bar mitzvah. Holling's dad even came, as did Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Bigio , and Mrs. Sidman. Danny pulls his prayer shawl around his shoulders. He looks terrified... (full context)