The pigman

             The Pigman Theme Essay In the novel The Pigman by Paul Zindel, many themes appear throughout the book. However, the most prominent are: older people can be friends but shouldn't be looked at as parent figures, platonic relationships should stay strictly platonic, and the last main theme is: underage drinking and smoking are very harmful. Some of these are themes one might not expect to see in a book such as The Pigman, yet are as imminent as the characters themselves. The first theme involves older people and friendships with them. Since this book was mainly about kids making friends with an older man, examples are plentiful. The following is an example of John Conlan's poor relationship with his parents, because of the time he spent with Mr. Pignati: "My mother started her high frequency cackling, but it was Bore who got on my nerves."(pg.136). John doesn't even know what his parents told him, let alone care about it. However, if asked about his conversation with Mr. Pignati, John would tell everything with incredible accuracy. This shows that when you look up to your adult friends like a parent, your relationship with your actual parents begin to drift. The second theme from The Pigman is that platonic relationships should stay platonic and not become anything more. A good example of what happens can be found on page 108. In this segment, John and Lorraine are dressed up and they start goofing around and then they kiss. As soon as this happens, they both get really quiet and decide to go downstairs and eat dinner. Originally John and Lorraine were just friends, then as soon as it started to become something more, it became very uncomfortable and they quickly moved to something else. When two very good friends both know when something gets weird, it shows that both of them aren't ready to become more than Friends. The third theme runs throughout most of the novel. It's alcohol and how it effects under-age drinkers.