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Chapter 3
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
Lorraine narrates this chapter. Lorraine catches readers up to speed on what John hasn’t said about Dennis and Norton—they’re “really disturbed.” Norton has mean eyes and is an outcast. He’s been that way since he was caught stealing a bag of marshmallows from the grocery store and the story made the local paper. He’s also the one who found out how to cheat at the phone game, making sure he always picked a woman’s name instead of a man’s out of the phone book (you’re not supposed to look at the name). But one time, Lorraine peeked too—and when she spotted a number with a Howard Avenue address (near Lorraine’s house), she dialed it: Pignati Angelo 190 Howard Ave.
True to form, Lorraine can’t even call Dennis and Norton “really disturbed” without searching for some underlying psychological explanation for their “disturbed” behavior. Here, she implies that Norton acts out as a defense mechanism against his peers’ rejection: in other words, he acts “really disturbed” because he’s a social outcast and is hurting emotionally, not because he is a fundamentally bad, “disturbed” kid. This passage also clarifies John’s earlier remark about Lorraine technically being responsible for bringing Mr. Pignati into their lives: it was she who intentionally selected his number from the phone book.
Themes
When Lorraine called, a cheerful voice answered. Lorraine nervously pretended she was Miss Truman from the Howard Avenue Charities. Mr. Pignati said his wife wasn’t home. Lorraine, putting on a false British accent, insisted she wanted to speak with Mr. Pignati, not his wife. But she couldn’t keep up the charade and burst out laughing. She tried to cover for herself, pretending that she was laughing at a joke someone in the office just made. Following John’s whispered suggestion, she told Mr. Pignati that she was calling on behalf of the “L & J Fund” (the John and Lorraine Fund). But Mr. Pignati played along, asking Lorraine to repeat the joke that had made her laugh—he explained that his wife had loved jokes and that he missed her. His wife, he explained, was visiting her sister in California.
Lorraine assumes a false name as part of her prank, but her unwillingness to use her real name perhaps also gestures toward her low self-esteem: in other words, she uses a false name because she assumes nobody would be interested in talking to her as she is. As well, note Mr. Pignati’s willingness to go along with the obvious prank phone call: perhaps he, like the teens, is so starved for human connection that he’ll take any opportunity to talk to another person, even if it’s just a silly kid calling him as part of a game.
Themes
Mr. Pignati kept talking about his wife (using the past tense), telling Lorraine jokes his wife liked. Something about his tone made Lorraine feel sorry for him—he sounded very lonely. By this point, Dennis and Norton had gotten bored and went to watch TV. But John stayed with Lorraine as she talked to Mr. Pignati. As Lorraine continued to talk to Mr. Pignati, making up lies as the conversation went along, she thought about how John was the one who taught her to make stuff up. He was always doing that, like when he claimed that he spilled sugary coffee on his Johnny Tremain book report, which cockroaches then ate. Lorraine likes to make stuff up too, but only in her writing.
It’s curious that Mr. Pignati is talking about his wife in the past tense—usually, people use the past tense to talk about people who have died or are no longer in their lives. Could Mr. Pignati be lying about his wife visiting relatives out of town? And if so, why? Also, note that while Lorraine clearly disapproves of John’s compulsive lying, she’s doing it herself anyway. This illustrates how Lorraine’s loneliness and desperation to keep John as her friend motivate her to compromise some of her morals.
Themes
John, on the other hand, lies constantly, even to his parents. Once, he told his mother he was hearing voices from space; his mother laughed it off as if nothing had happened. But John’s parents lie all the time too; John’s dad lied when he faked an insurance claim, and Mrs. Conlan always lies to the store clerk about him forgetting to give her Green Stamps. Lorraine thinks this is “subconscious, schizophrenic fibbing,” a way John and his parents deal with inner guilt complexes. She hopes she’ll never be that kind of adult.
Lorraine sheds more light on John’s compulsive lying, suggesting that he learned it from his parents. She also suggests that John’s parents’ failure to take his lying seriously (his mother simply laughs it off) only encourages John to keep lying. Once more, the novel shows how deeply a person’s family can affect their behavior, personality, and development.
Themes
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Lorraine’s focus shifts back to her ongoing phone call. Mr. Pignati asks if Lorraine heard his joke—she hadn’t laughed. Lorraine lies and says she heard the joke and that it was very funny. Sensing Lorraine’s distracted mood, Mr. Pignati apologizes and says he’ll give $10 to the L & J fund. When he asks where to send it, John takes the phone from Lorraine before she can stop him.
What started out as a relatively harmless prank suddenly gets more serious: it seems that John is willing to scam Mr. Pignati out of 10 dollars. Though Lorraine seems less on board with the idea, she repeatedly goes along with whatever John does, regardless of whether it’s in line with her personal morals, in order to maintain their friendship. So readers can predict that Lorraine will allow John to escalate this prank on Mr. Pignati, even if she’s not comfortable with it.
Themes
