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Narkiss Pressburger (Login adurand)
Forum Owner
Posted Feb 16, 2008 1:42 PM
The most striking theme that I picked up on in my reading of “Pig Tales” is some type of struggle between being “human” and being a “pig”. Throughout my reading of “Pig Tales” I found myself somewhat puzzled as to the nature of the main character. At times I actually got the slight feeling that there are in fact no humans in the book and they are all pigs. This idea was disproved towards the end when it becomes obvious that she has really transformed. I paid attention particularly to those times and the events that took place when she was described as being human and then suddenly back to a pig on all fours and rolling around in the humus.
“Then things began to happen fast. I don’t like leaving my lair, I was naturally rather upset the day we moved, so I was a complete pig: snout, trotters, protruding rump – simply impossible to disguise. Yvan had to cram me in a large bag, but when I’m a sow I get really claustrophobic and I couldn’t stand it in there.” (136)
After reading this, I realized that throughout the book her “pig” qualities seemed to appear whenever she felt stress or anger. This also brings up the question of what may have caused this transformation in the first place? Her job and the stress of needing to achieve perfection in order to please her customers is one reason that I came up with.
I thought about the last sentence of the book for quite a while:
“… when I crane my neck toward the Moon, it’s to show, once again, a human face.”
I always associate looking up towards the sky in the typical cliché sort of way. That she is possibly looking up to something better than the situation she is in. Also, she is hopeful that it is achievable.
There are a couple references in the book to Muslims and Arabs. I was wondering if there was any intentional connection to the fact that she is transforming into a pig, a forbidden food in the Muslim religion?
Also, I noticed that there are no distinct paragraphs throughout the novel. This gives the sense of continuation. The only time ideas are allowed to change, even though it may not feel this way to the reader, is when the paragraph is set apart and a new one begins.
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