Roald+Dahl's+Pig

Roald Dahl's poetry and stories have an incredible sense of irony, which is something that I think many young people understand even if they cannot name it specifically. Kids know when something turns out differently than it should, and are especially savvy in this postmodern culture at identifying those elements that are a bit off, a bit different, or a bit unexpected. I think Dahl's poem, "The Pig," is a wonderfully dark and hilarious example of irony, and I hope that this poem could serve as a gateway into a Dahl unit or even the in-class reading and discussion of one of his novels. My favorites are //The Witches//, //The BFG//, or //Charlie and the Chocolate Factory//, which could very easily lend itself to discussions of tone, voice, characterstics of genre, and questions of adaptation, with use of either the classic film starring Gene Wilder or the more recent adaptation by Tim Burton. But first, what's going on with this pig?