From Zindel's The Pigman, write a series of letters between Lorraine and her mother discussing their relationship. Include a part about how Mr....

Lorraine's mother suffers from the hardships of being a single mom and feelings of rejection from her former husband. Lorraine suffers from an emotionally absent mother who can't find a silver lining in any situation. For an assignment about writing letters between these two characters, one must consider both perspectives through textual evidence. A letter from the mother would catalogue her bad experiences to justify why she is so tough on her daughter. A letter from...

Lorraine's mother suffers from the hardships of being a single mom and feelings of rejection from her former husband. Lorraine suffers from an emotionally absent mother who can't find a silver lining in any situation. For an assignment about writing letters between these two characters, one must consider both perspectives through textual evidence. A letter from the mother would catalogue her bad experiences to justify why she is so tough on her daughter. A letter from Lorraine would center around her feelings of rejection by her mother and the lack of trust demonstrated by her. One of Lorraine's letters would probably bring up her friendship with Mr. Pignati in order to emphasize to her mother that not all men are jerks and that being a nice parent is possible. Textual evidence for each character is provided below to help organize content for the letters:

Mother-

Examples of distrusting men -

"I don't care what all the kids do. I don't want you in there. I've seen those boys hanging around there, and they've only got one thing on their minds" (50).

". . . when she was pregnant with me her doctor called and told her my father had some kind of disease, and she shouldn't let him touch her until he got rid of it. It turned out that he had a girlfriend on the side, and that's when she filed for a legal separation" (107).

Lorraine-

Examples of Mr. Pignati not being like other men and being more of a parent to her than her mother:

"Mr. Pignati laughed like anything as we went flying by, and before we knew it, he had his skates on and the three of us were zooming right from the porch through the living room and dining room down the hall into the room with the pigs. . . We were having so much fun. . . I forgot he was so old" (120-121).

"No one had ever bought me stuff like this before--something I just liked and didn't need and didn't even ask for" (90).

Mr. Pignati shows Lorraine that adults can be nice and trusting. These would be Lorraine's arguments to support her friendship with him. The mother's perspective would be based on all the hurt that she felt in her life and that she doesn't want her daughter to experience that pain, either.