Pigs in Literature
and Popular Culture: A Tutorial
Center for Animals and Public Policy
Spring, 2000 |
|
SESSION 1 - LITERATURE FOR ADULTS
SESSION 2 - LITERATURE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN
SESSION 3 - LITERATURE FOR EARLY READERS
SESSION 4 - LITERATURE FOR YOUNG ADULT
SESSION 5 - ADULT UPDATED
SESSION 6 - PERCEPTIONS OF THE PIG: A PROPOSAL
"Dogs look up at you: cats look down at you: but pigs is equal...."
(Old English saying, quoted in Watkins & Hughes 173) |
Session 1--Literature for Adults--
discussion
and essay (approx 5 pp) isolating prevailing themes (issues: eating pigs,
using them for experimentation--including biotech and transplant, or factory
farming although probably only eating and treatment on the farm will apply
in the earlier texts) and approaches (satire) based on reading Orwell's
Animal Farm and a Wodehouse novel (Heavy Weather, Summer Lightning, Something
Fresh or the short story "Pi-hoo-o-o-o-ey!" on which they are all based.
-
Testamentum porcelli ("The Testament of the Piglet") in Ziolkowski 299-
300. Laments for dead animals became the vogue in Milesian tales. In this
parody of genuine testaments, a schoolboy's tale from late
antiquity, the pig Grunnius Corocotta tells his tale. Along the way the
poet fills his lines with "names that allude to pigs and related species,
porcine noises, pork products and spices used in making them" (Ziolkowski
38-39).
-
Plutarch "Gryllus" (ca A. D. 100) Records the futile attempt of Odysseus
to persuade one of his men, turned into a pig by the sorceress Circe, that
it isbetter to be a human than a pig (Ziolkowski 131).
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Boar hunts in the Iliad (xiii) and Gawaine and the Green Knight Yesengrimus
12th century Beast Poem Wu-chen en. Journey to the West 16th century Chinese
novel which contains a major character called Piggy
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Percy Shelley, Oedipus Tyrannus; or, Swellfoot the Tyrant
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Charles Lamb. "Roast Pig."
-
Robert Southey. "The Pig" (1799)
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G. K. Chesterton. Fancies vrs Facts.
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Edmond Rostand. Les cochons roses.
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W. H. Hudson. The Book of the Naturalist.
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George Orwell. Animal Farm (1945). New American Library, 1983.
Orwell's "Fairy Story" shares the dark tones of satire found in works like
Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Adams' The Plague Dogs, and Hughes' Sweet William.
Its animals suffer and endure and go unrewarded. "Its message (which is
by nomeans a moral) is that of all the great fairy-stories," explains C.
M. Wodehouse (Times Literary Supplement 6 August 1954); "'Life is like
that--take it or leave it.'" Orwell may have intended the story as political
allegory, but in a letter he writes that his intention was to analyze Marx's
theory "from the animal point of view. To them it was clear that the concept
of a class struggle between humans was pure illusion since whenever it
was necessary to exploit animals, all humans united against them; the true
struggle is between animals and humans." As Blount puts it: "One reads
it and ends by feeling shame--like Gulliver--at being human, as well as
shame that men can exploit the ideals of their fellow men. It is almost
as if not Orwell but a committee of wise animals had written the story,
arranging their characters to interest us in human revolutionary parallels
in order to draw our attention to an animal plight: animal fable in reverse"
(67-68). The initial speeches by Old Major support this intention, as does
the increasing exploitation of the other animals by the pigs as the pigs
themselves become more and more human. Ultimately the metamorphosis returns
the farm to a world where "Some animals [humans] are more equal than others."
-
P. G. Wodehouse, Blandings Castle series of novels ( Heavy Weather [1933],
Summer Lightning, Something Fresh) (based on the short story, "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey,"
anthologised in Animals: Famous and Curious Stories)
Featured in all the Blandings novels is the imposing Berkshire sow, Empress
of Blandings. Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature (1995) describes
her as "a baloon with ears and a tail....She is the property and pride
of Lord Emsworth, and she has won three consecutive Fat Pigs silver medals
at the Shropshire Agricultural Show. In the course of Wodehouse's many
tales set at Blandings Castle, she is stolen, kidnapped, hidden, and even
forced to diet" (377).
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Sylvia Plath. "Sow" (1957)
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Roald Dahl, "Pig" (1959). In Kiss Kiss. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin,
1980.
"It is ironic that, with a storyline that includes animals only at its
climax and no social message, 'Pig' performs a more troubling critique
of the slaughterhouse and a more profound questioning of the human state
than does [Upton Sinclair's] The Jungle. As a macabre story, driven by
the sinisterly humorous vision of its author, Roald Dahl's 'Pig' certainly
puts the problems of cities, animals, and people beyond resolution. Interestingly
enough, the primary victim of the meat-producing industry in 'Pig' is a
human being. 'Our hero,' Lexington, is actually butchered at the end of
the story, in the same dispassionate manner as pigs are butchered. He is,
however, first 'animalized' in a sense. He is raised nearly from birth,
in complete isolation from civilization, by an eccentric vegetarian aunt
in her home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. After Aunt Glosspan's death, Lexington
comes to New York City with all the innocence of an animal brought to slaughter....
Dahl ... puts the reader in the same position as Lexington; the surprise
ending repeats, in an admittedly minor and safe fashion, the violent shock
suffered by Lexington and, not incidentally, by the pigs who are also dragged
to slaughter on the same conveyer belt carrying our hero to his death."....
"In combining narrative visions that usually exclude one another at
the beginning of 'Pig,' Dahl anticipates the deadly fusion of clashing
ideas at the end of his tale: the fusion of slaughterhouse practices with
sacrosanct human flesh. Cannibalism, of course, is not unusual in works
of horror. Nor is it unusual that violation of the taboo against cannibalism
be tinged with humour, as it is in 'Pig.' The films Eating Raoul and Parents
are recent examples of sinister amusement being drawn from the idea of
people eating other people. 'Pig' distinguishes itself from other humorous
renditions...in centering upon the human victim and raising important essential
questions about the actual difference between humans and animals....
....Lexington goes...to an extremely dirty cafeteria, there to taste
meat, a 'greyish-white slab' (198) of roast pork, for the first time in
his life.
"His ecstasy at finding this wholly new and eminently tasty food suggests
an association with the conventional view of pigs: he is living by his
taste buds alone and will consume anything that satisfies his sensual needs.
One has to bear in mind that the conventional view of pigs as undiscriminating
feeders is unfair. Nevertheless, Lexington's pure sensual delight at the
taste of meat does put a different complexion on the title 'Pig.' Has Lexington
sinned, then? Has he proved himself a 'pig in the conventional sense and
thus become susceptible to slaughter? Or has he not sinned, since he cannot
balk morally at the slab of meat, and thus proved himself an innocent animal
ready for the butchering?
"At the slaughterhouse, his response to the sight of a pig being hooked
up to the pulley and dragged upside down into the secret regions of the
building only deepens the dilemma of his moral state. Unlike the immigrants
in The Jungle, Lexington experiences no sympathy for the pigs. The struggles
and squealing of a particularly 'nimble' pig as it hops along on three
legs and fights the pull of the chain elicit from Lexington only the observation
that this is 'Truly a fascinating process ' (203). He is curious about
the 'funny cracking noise,' which is the sound of the pig's leg or pelvis
breaking, but is ultimately more concerned that the recipe for this strange
new meat stuff is extremely complicated that that the pig is suffering.
"....All flesh is meat to this slaughterhouse.... Ultimately, it does
not matter whether Lexington is a good human being or a bad one, an innocent
animal or an amoral one: the slaughterhouse is after flesh alone. In this
respect, Dahl equalizes humans and animals in a way that Sinclair does
not.
"....Dahl does put us inside the butcher's victim by following Lexington
on his upside-down course towards death. He does not, however, depict this
death as cruel or shocking. Lexington is alarmed but not panicked. He does
not seem to be in a great deal of pain after his throat is slit. The blood
pours into his eyes and he grows sleepy, but that is about all we learn
of the physical effects of butchering. Perhaps the insidious gentleness
of the slaughter might lead someone to opt out of a meat diet. Yet 'Pig'
is not obviously an argument against meat-eating. Nor is it clearly an
argument, made metaphorically, about the inhumane treatment of even the
most innocent of sentient beings, human or otherwise. The effect of the
story, rather, is to raise the existential question of what quality in
humanity keeps us out of the slaughterhouse. Why should Lexington...be
exempt from slaughter when pigs or 'Daisy and Snowdrop and Lily' the cows
are not? (Scholtmeijer 153-157)
-
Penelope Shuttle (1947- ). "Killion Pigs" (in Fleur Adcock & Jacqueline
Sims, eds. The Oxford Book of Creatures [New York: Oxford UP, 1995], 60).
-
Ted Hughes. "View of a Pig" (in Margery Cornwell-Robinson. Three Grey Geese:
Modern Writings in Honor of Animals [New York: Joyce Merty-Gilmore Foundation,
1985), 78-9).
-
Anthony Hecht. "Pig" (in John Hollander, ed. Animal Poems [New York/Toronto:
Knopf Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 1994], 47).
Though pigs are not the main characters (as the dog is in Travels with
Charley) or even the main symbols in John Steinbeck's novels, pigs do appear
in them. Mary Allen, in Animals in American Literature (U of Chicago, 1983),
comments: "By one means or another, John Steinbeck's animals are put to
death. Marine invertebrates are gathered as specimens; pigs and chickens
are slaughtered for provision; a colt succumbs to pneumonia; a mare is
sliced open to save her foal; mice are squeezed to death by a half-wit;
insects are squashed; dogs and rabbits are struck by swerving cars. The
violence in Steinbeck's world generally takes a peculiar turn in the case
of animals, who meet death in an ingenious variety of ways, drawn out with
the graphic detail and detachment of a biologist.... While metaphors align
lower species with underdog man, the actual animals have little in common
with him. And the tenderness expressed for human suffering does not extend
to animals--nor does Steinbeck's sentimentality--as he maintains an almost
perfect detachment from their sensations" (115). The novels she discusses
that have pigs in them are The Red Pony (1937), To a God Unknown, and The
Grapes of Wrath (1939). The young boy in Red Pony (which, incidentally,
is recommended for young adult readers) finds "'pig killing was fascinating,
with the screaming and the blood, but it made Jody's heart beat so fast
that it hurt him.' This 'hurt' is the stimulation he looks for to break
the monotony of farm life, both before and after he owns a pony. When Jody's
father says he will need him in the morning, the boy tremulously but hopefully
asks if it will be to kill a pig" (123). Jody's eagerness is shared by
the boys and men in Steinbeck's The Pastures of Heaven (1932). In The Grapes
of Wrath, the Joad brothers are equally enthusiastic about slaughtering
animals, among them pigs ("Noah, leaning over the felled pigs, found the
great artery with his carving knife and released the pulsing streams of
blood"). In To a God Unknown, animals, though often treated as totemic,
are still brutalized. Allen comments: "Joseph's first encounter with wildlife
in the West is the huge boar, which 'sits on its haunches and tearingly
ate the hind quarters of a still-squealing little pig' (5). The man's revulsion
rules out both a worshipful approach or an affinity for this low species.
He does not shoot only because it occurs to him that this boar may be the
father of fifty pigs and perhaps the source of fifty more. But once on
his own ranch, Joseph is soon at work with the knife, cutting the Wayne
brand in the ears of his calves and performing castrations" (121-122).
-
Denise Levertov. Pig Dreams: Scenes from the Life of Sylvia. Pastels by
Liebe Coolidge. Woodstock, Vermont: Countryman Press, 1981.
-
Noel Perrin. "Pig Tales." Second Person Rural (1980). Penguin, 1987.
-
Jane Smiley, Moo (1995).
________, Horse Sense (2000)
-
Marie Darrieussecq, Pig Tales: A Novel of Lust and Transformation. Trans.
Linda Coverdale. New York: New Press, 1997.
-
Lydia Adamson. Dr. Nightingale Chases Three Little Pigs. Signet
This mystery series, featuring a female veterinarian, includes numerous
animals. Though the pig is the focus in this one, a large sow named Sara--worthy
of Wodehouse--appears in Dr. Nightingale Traps the Missing Lynx (1999).
Session 2--Literature for Young
Children-- Discussion and essay: How do the themes and attitudes
emphasized compare with those found in pig literature intended for adults?
What accounts for the differences if any exist? I'd suggest focusing on
a few nursery rhymes like "This little pig goes to market" and "Tom, Tom,
the piper's son;" a well-known pig tale like Three Little Pigs; Potter's
two pig tales; and maybe what cartoon pigs little kids are exposed to.
Perhaps even focusing on an issue (like eating pork) would be wise. You
may also want to consider the following:
Victoria Moran, author of Compassion, The Ultimate Ethic: An Exploration
of Veganism (1985), believes that "the overwhelming attitude expressed
in children's literature is that animals exist for our use; indeed they
love to serve us" and goes on to trace the hardening of that attitude in
TV, books, and human cultural habits" ("Children and Animals: Keeping Love
Alive," The Animals' Agenda March 1986: 10-13). The New York Times "cited
a report by the Interior Department Fish and Wildlife Service, which found
that....[v]ery young children were the most exploitive, harsh and unfeeling
of all children in their attitudes toward animals. These results suggest
our own cultural idealization of the relationship of very young children
to animals is not only incorrect but may foster a distorted understanding
of the needs of young people" (Marcus 128).
"...comparatively few contemporary children have actually seen a living
farm animal, except perhaps in zoos, but How Do We Help? Echoes book after
book in
depicting such animals in rural environments and assuming children
are familiar with them. A child who cannot recognize such objects from
experience in reality must learn them from images--from the experience
of pictures. And because images so uncommon in reality are so common in
picture books and indeed in all children's literature, learning them is
a significant part of a child's early visual education. "Words like 'cow'
or 'duck' are often among the first ones spoken by young children; that
they can recognize and name such images long before they know the names
of significant objects in their actual environment speaks of how successfully
they can learn the conventions of picture books. So does the presence in
book after book of a sort of creature who not only does not appear in the
children's environment but does not actually exist at all outside of books.
The characters in Max's First Word are cartoon creatures who look unlike
anything in the real world, although they vaguely resemble rabbits. But
even the, they are rabbits who wear human clothes and use human furniture
and who apparently can speak like humans. It is a cliché that such
pictures are so common in books for young children because children 'like'
animals; it is certainly possible that children learn an interest in such
humanized animals from their frequent appearances in books" (Nodelman 34-35).
"Pigs figure in nursery rhymes, folk-tales, fables and classics of children's
literature: A. A. Milne's nervous Piglet in the Winnie-the-Pooh stories,
and Beatrix Potter's Pigling Bland and Little Pig Robinson, for example.
Cartoon pigs include Walt Disney's version of the Three Little Pigs, and
the pin-up, Miss Piggy of the Muppets" (Watkins and Hughes 168). "Fictional
pigs are rarely villains; George Orwell's 'gang of three' in Animal Farm
must really be exceptional. They generally walk on their hind legs and
wear clothes. With their pinkish bodies and snouty faces, pigs are more
human-looking than other, furrier animals. In Alice in Wonderland by Lewis
Carrol, the Duchess's baby turns into a pig while Alice is carrying
it along: 'If it had grown up,' she said to herself, 'it would have made
a dreadfully ugly child, but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think,'
and she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very
well as pigs" (Watkins & Hughes 168-169)
Nursery rhymes, Picture books
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Hans Christian Anderson, The Piggy Bank (1855)
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This Little Pig, His Picture Book (1895)
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The Story of the Three Little Pigs (1904)
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This Little Pig Went to Market (1922)
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Beatrix Potter, The Tale of Pigling Bland (1913).
"In 1913 [Potter] married...in spite of her parents' objections and moved
to Hill Top Farm for good. This triumph is celebrated, several critics
have suggested, in The Tale of Pigling Bland, published in the month of
her wedding, October.... The book is illustrated with a view of her garden
at Hill Top...and ends with the escape of Pigling Bland and a 'perfectly
lovely little black Berkshire pig,' Pig-wig, from a claustrophobic kitchen
to...Potter's beloved Lake District" (Allison Lurie, Don't Tell the Grown-ups:
Subversive Children's Literature [Boston: Little, Brown, 1990], 97. Incidentally,
Laurie titles her chapter on Potter "Animal Liberation.")
_________, The Tale of Little Pig Robinson (1930)
"In the Tale of Little Pig Robinson, the protagonist goes even further,
settling on a desert island and becoming the pig 'with a ring at the end
of his nose' who
was so useful in Edward Lear's Owl and Pussycat" (Lurie 97)
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A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh (1926)--Piglet
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Augustine Macgregor, Piggy Plays Truant (1946)
-
John Dyke, Pigwig and the Pirates (1979)
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Mary and Roland Emett, Anthony and Antimacassar (1943)--about a china pig
-
Allison Yttley, Sam Pig Goes to Market (1941)
-
Kenneth Grahame, Bertie's Escapade
-
Bill Peet, Chester the Worldly Pig (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1965)
"Chester...speaks with startling self-awareness: 'Of all things,...why
on earth did I have to be a pig? A pig is no better off than a cabbage
or a carrot, just something to eat. But before I end up as so much sausage
and ham, I intend to try and amount to something.' "'But what else,' the
narrator asks, could a pig ever be? That was Chester's main problem, and
he turned this around and around in his head until one day it suddenly
came to him, 'I'll be a star in the circus!'" (Marcus 132).
-
Helen Oxenbury, Pigtale (1973)
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Susan Meddaugh, Hog-Eye. Houghton Mifflin
-
Margie Palstini. Piggie Pie. Ill Howard Fine. Clarion
-
Janie Bynum. Otis.
-
Laura Numeroff. If You Give a Pig a Pancake. Ill Felicia Bond
TV, films, and cartoons, comics
-
Disney's Porky and Petunia; Three Little Pigs
-
Muppets' Miss Piggy
-
Babe
-
Babe in the City
Session 3--Literature for Early readers.
Discussion and essay: Do these texts differ from those intended for younger
children? How? And how do they, if they do, differ from those intended for adults?
Again, focus is essential. I'd suggest using the same issue(s) you chose for
the earlier essays since that will suggest how texts aimed at different age
groups handle delicate matters). Here I'd suggest Charlotte's Web, Freddie the
Pig, and Babe (novel and film) as primary texts.
-
Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810). Fabulous Histories: Designed for Instruction
of Children Respecting Their Treatment of Animals( 1786: later retitled
The History of the Robins)--cf Adcock & Sims, 6-7.
"Sarah Trimmer directly questioned the Cartesian view of animals [as unfeeling
machines] in Fabulous Histories...[where] a lady admits she had 'been for
a long time accustomed to consider animals as mere machines, actuated by
the unerring hand of Providence, to do those things which are necessary
for the preservation of themselves and their offspring...' but she modifies
this belief when she encounters a pig showing obvious intelligence" (van
Essen 5).
-
Thomas Hood. "The Lament of Toby, the Learned Pig"
--------. The Headlong Career and Woeful Ending of Precocious Piggy.
"...the pig leaves the farm and seeks his fortune in the world ('What,
leaving your mother, you foolish pig?' Pigling Bland had no choice, and
a rather happier end.) Piggy tries everything, wearing the most fashionable
and appropriate clothes, including cigar and top hat. He tries landscape
gardening, driving a horse, dancing, including a bal masque, but eventually
goes to a fair and takes to drink. In the end, the butcher arrives. Anyone
who finds Beatrix Potter harsh should take note of the 'Rake's Progress',
and other picture books and annuals intended for the Victorian child (though
Piggy is of slightly earlier date). Perhaps the butcher would have come
anyway, whether Piggy had left home or not; the moral is rather ambiguous"
(Blount 70-71).
-
E. B. White, Charlotte's Web (1952). Ill. Garth Williams. Harper's Trophy,
1980.
"The hero of this story, a young pig named Wilbur, is saved...through the
creative, aggressive work of a spider named Charlotte who inhabits the
same barn," writes Mary Daley at the opening of her discussion of the novel
in Gynecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press,
1978). She sees the novel as an example of the hero's need for the protection
and wisdom of the Cosmic Mother (Spider) and questions why the hero saved
from slaughter must be male [as is the case also in Babe]. White himself,
who acknowledged that seeing his own pig slaughtered provided the impetus
for Charlotte's Web, said that writing the novel taught him "there was
no need to tamper in any way with the habits and characteristics of spiders,
pigs, geese, and rats" in order to tell their story. Faith McNaulty sees
the story as a tale about "the sweetness of being alive...[a story which]
marches up to Death, looks him in the eye, and cuts him down to size" (The
New Yorker 30 Nov 1987: 132ff; see also Lanes 105-6).
"White did not use animals as personifications of humans, nor did he
write for children on one level and for adults on another. Charlotte, Wilbur,
the hero pig, Templeton the rat, and the goose who says everything twice
are essentially what they are--barnyard animals. The author himself has
left us his view of this classic in a letter to the producer of the movie:
...I do hope, though, that you are not planning to turn Charlotte's Web
into a moral tale. It is not that at all. It is, I think, an appreciative
story, and there is quite a difference. It celebrates life, the seasons,
the goodness of the barn, the beauty of the world, the glory of everything.
But essentially it is amoral, because animals are essentially amoral, and
I respect them, and I think this respect is implicit in the tale...I discovered
that there was no need
to tamper in any way with the habits and characteristics of spiders,
pigs, geese and rats. No "motivation" is needed if you remain true to the
spirit of fantasy" (Egloff 166).
-
Walter R. Brooks, Freddy the Pig series of 26 novels begins in 1927 and
ends in 1958 (see Sales 245-258 and Egloff 126-7):
________. Freddy the Detective (1932)
________. Freddy and the Ignoramus (1941)
________. Freddy Goes to Florida (1948)
-
Hugh Lofting, Dr Doolittle, Gub Gub's Book (1932)
-
Dick King-Smith. Babe, the Gallant Pig.
"There are few writers who can make animals come alive as well as Dick
King-Smith, and his best loved book is Babe. The story of a pig who becomes
a sheep-herder has been made into a successful movie and has created interest
in earlier works by this remarkable author. These include: Ace: The Very
Important Pig and The School Mouse [featured in a recent amzon.com ad]"
(Lewis and Mayes 316-317).
-
Ace: The Very Important Pig.
-
William Steig. Roland the Minstrel Pig (1968).
________. The Amazing Bone (Farrar, Straus & Giroux,1976).
"Warmth and wry humor suffuse the pages in this tale about how a talking
bone saves a charming piglet [Pearl] from becoming food for a fox" (Loer
1).
-
Karen Beaumont Alarcon. Louella Mae, She's Run Away! Ill Rosanne Litzinger.
Holt
-
Arthur Geisert. Oink. Houghton Mifflin
-
Margaret Wild. Old Pig. Ill Ron Brooks. Dial
-
Colin McNaughton. Suddenly! Harcourt Brace
-
Stephen Krensky. The Three Blind Mice Mystery. Ill Lynn Munsinger. Dell.
-
Eugene Trivigas. The Three Little Wolves & the Big Bad Pig. Ill Helen
Oxenbury. MacMillan
-
Jon Scieszka. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Ill Lane Smith.
Viking Puffin
-
Maurice Sendak and James Marshall. Swine Lake. Harcourt Brace, 1999. Ben
M. Baglio. Piglet in a Playpen.
Session 4--Literature
for Young Adults. Discussion and essay: How do approaches and
themes adjust for adolescent readers? Why, in comparison to what is found
for young children and for adult readers, is so little available? Are there
farm animals in the animorph series? Are they farther from works intended
for
younger children and more like approaches, attitudes and themes found
in adult pig literature?). Consider as well the animated Animal Farm and
Babe in the City which are considered suitable for older child viewers
or adults.
-
Allen Andrews, Pig Plantagenet (1980). New York: Viking, 1981.
-
William Golding. Lord of the Flies
-
George Orwell, Animal Farm
-
Animal Farm (animated)
-
Babe in the City
Session 5--Adult updated.
Discussion and essay will focus on Darrieussecq's Pig Tales and Smiley's
Moo. How do the themes, issues, and approaches and attitudes in these very
contemporary works by female authors compare to adult texts considered
earlier and to the children's literature considered?
Session 6--Perceptions of
the Pig: A Proposal for on-going humane Education using the
pig as an example.
Secondary Sources
-
Allen-Newberry, Judy. Animals in the Modern Fairy Tale. MA thesis: East
Texas State University 1986.
-
Ash, Russell. The Pig Book. New York: Arbor House, 1986.
-
Blount, Margaret. Animal Land: The Creatures of Children's Fiction. New
York: William Morrow, 1975.
-
Cooper, J. C. Symbolic and Mythological Animals. London: Aquarian/Thorsons,
1992.
-
Davis, P. D. C. and A. A. Dent. Animals that Changed the World; The Story
of the Domestication of Wild Animals. New York: Crowell-Collier, 1968 reprint
of original 1966.
-
Egloff, Sheila A. Worlds Within: Children's Fantasy from the Middle Ages
to Today. Chicago and London: American Library Association, 1988.
-
Hendrickson, Linnea. Children's Literature: A Guide to Criticism. Boston:
G. K. Hall, 1987.
-
Lanes, Selma G. Down the Rabbit Hole: Adventures and Misadventures in the
Realm of Children's Literature. New York: Atheneum, 1971.
-
Lewis, Valerie and Walter M. Mayes. Valerie and Walter's Best Books for
Children: A Lively, Opinionated Guide for Listeners and Readers from Birth
to Age 14. New York: Avon, 1998.
-
Loer, Stephanie, comp and annotator. Classics for Young Readers. Boston:
The Boston Globe, 1997.
-
Marcus, Leonard S. "Picture Book Animals: How Natural a History?" The Lion
and the Unicorn 7/8 (1983-84): 127-139.
-
Nodelman, Perry. Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children's
Picture Books. Athens and London: U of Georgia P, 1988.
-
Nowicki, Kathy. "Baa! Meow! Woof! Great Opportunities in the Game of Let's
Pretend with Turner's Let's Be Animals." The Northampton (MA) Daily Hampshire
Gazette 19-20 September 1998: W1-W2.
-
Sales, Roger. Fairy Tales: From Snow White to E. B. White (Mass: Harvard
UP,1978).
-
Scholtmeijer, Marian. Animal Victims in Modern Fiction: From Sanctity to
Sacrifice. Toronto, Buffalo, London: U of T P, 1993.
-
Watkins, Peter & Erica Hughes. A Book of Animals. London: Julia MacVane,
1985.
-
White, E. B. "Death of a Pig." Atlantic Monthly 181(January 1948): 30-33.
"...intimations of Wilbur in this account of the death of his pig" (Hendrickson
285).
-
Winfrey, Laurie Platt. Pig Appeal. New York: Walker, 1982. (The pig in
art)
-
Updike, John. "Magmun Opus: At E. B. White's Centennial Charlotte Spins
On." The New Yorker 12 July 1999: 74-78.
-
Van Essen, Susanne. "Ecophilosophy in Children's Literature." The America
Nature Writing Newsletter 7:1(Spring 1995): 5.
-
Ziolkowski, Jan M. Talking Animals: Medieval Latin Beast Poetry, 750-1150.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.