The Three Little Pigs – 1840s

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APPEARANCE

123:15-123:37

IDENTITY

Wikipedia has it that the best-known version of the story was printed by Joseph Jacobs on June 19, 1890, though the first print version was in the 1840s, and the folktale is thought to go back untold generations.

SYMBOLIC SIGNIFICANCE

Jack recites the wolf’s dialogue from the fairy tale before smashing in the bathroom door. This could have several purposes (the Room 237 theory, for instance, is quite intriguing), but I feel the irony should be pointed out that Jack, however menacing, is casting himself as the villain here, and an impotent one at that. The big bad wolf is defeated. Was that lost on him? Did he just think it sounded like some badass shit to say to a bitch before wasting her (man, what do you get when you add 25 and 17?)? In any event, it’s a nice way to wrap up all the children’s stories winding through the narrative.

In terms of the Four Directions principle, Jack comparing himself to a dog is a nice way to show he’s become the hotel’s man. And pigs are genetically very close to humans.

It also occurs to me that this last literary reference is somewhat a response to the first literature/art seen in the film, regarding the Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel warns that hegemony cannot last, and that there’s always a more powerful force than the grandest unity, even if that force is simply the universe itself. But The Three Little Pigs is about the opposite, shrinking the absurd threat of an Old Testament god down to that of the generic menace of a Big Bad. And showing that evolution of form (the superior technology of the brick house) along with strength in numbers is how the “little” pigs can fend off the “big” bad wolf.

There were also other versions of the fable where it’s a fox after the pigs, and isn’t there a fox painting in the same spot outside the 237 bathroom? In that version, Andrew Lang’s version, the pigs are named Blacky, Browny and Whitey, which suggests the person writing may have shared my view of the pigs as humanity vs. the (in this case) fox’s universe/god. In that version, Blacky is the pig who saves his brothers, and here, it’s Hallorann who saves Wendy and Danny. Coincidence?

And here’s one last point to hammer that home: the Aarne-Thompson code for The Three Little Pigs is B124, which, besides containing a backwards 42, is a story form known as Salmon as Oldest and Wisest of Animals. Is Hallorann associated with fish?