E. B White Change

“Once in a while things slip - one of the actors goes up in his lines and the whole performance stumbles and halts.” This is how E.B. White describes the dramatic change in the normal routine of life after his pig becomes ill. This one pig causes a deviation from his daily life, and E.B. begins to change. He starts to see things differently, such as his relationship with the pig. Or when he sees the ring on Miss Wyman’s finger.

The first big change in his character is that he starts to view the pig as his own child. “He failed to appear at the trough for his supper, and when a pig (or a child) refuses supper a chill wave of fear runs through any household.” He continues to think of the pig as a child, to the extent that he begins to treat it as one. “ I felt his ears (as you might put your hand on the forehead of a child).” At one point he seems as connected to the pig as he is to himself. “ The stuff that goes into the trough and is received with such enthusiasm is an earnest of some later feast of his own, and when this suddenly comes to an end and the food lies stale and …show more content…
When he gave the pig an enema he discovered, “that once having given a pig an enema there is no turning back… The pig’s lot and mine were inextricably bound now.” He has gone past the point of return and can’t be separated from the pig. This makes it all the more tragic when he calls the veterinarian. “Erysipelas has to be considered.” “Can he give it to a person?” “Yes, he can.” With all the time he has spent with this pig E.B. instantly deduces that he has erysipelas as well. This rattles his foundation in raising pigs. “My confidence in the essential health and endurance of pigs had been strong and deep, but the awakening had been violent and I minded it all the more because I knew that what could be true of my pig could also be true of the rest of my tidy