Three little pigs
“Little pig, little pig, let me come in.”
To which the pig answered, – “No, no, by the hair on my chiny chin shin.”
The wolf then answered to that, – “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in.”
So he huffed, and he puffed, and he blew the house in, and ate up the little pig.
short excerpt from the original Three Little Pigs
“a very interesting story with a number of interesting points of particular relevance to House Therapy. Firstly and obviously, it is most well known as a story about houses and about constructing something able to withstand what life may threaten us with. When you think about it, straw, is probably a fairly suitable substance for a pig, but perhaps it makes a better bed than a house, in terms of security. Security is a lot what the three little pigs is all about really. The big bad wolf is at the door and is your construct strong enough to withstand the bad luck and tragedy, that life’s vicissitudes may throw against it. It could be saying to us when you build your personality make sure that you build it upon sound foundations, employing characters, or sub personalities, who are strong and resolute.
The first two little pigs strike me as a little too naïve, ignorant and not savvy enough to survive in the big bad world. Poverty has forced them out of their home and the whole story reeks of it, eating turnips, which apparently a good percentage of poor people in Eastern Europe did in the middle ages, when they could get them – otherwise they starved to death. Life was, I would suggest, much more intense before the advent of television, welfare and fast food outlets. Having life and death hanging over one, tends to imbue existence with real meaning. The third little pig, our hero, is the wise one and he successfully negotiates to receive something of substantial value, bricks, for nothing in return apparently, according to what information the story provides us with; and as such builds an impregnable brick home to repel the wolf. He then goes on to systematically and repeatedly outsmart the wolf, and simultaneously teach the reader about the concept of time, clocks and getting up early enough in the morning to outsmart the wolf, and during all of this we never really know how he or she feels about the loss of his or her two siblings. Is the third little pig motivated by loss and the desire for revenge, which is consummated with the ritualised ingestion of the wolf for supper; thus turning the tables on the wolf who becomes the prey. We will never truly know, perhaps there is a place for a sequel or prequel – The Three Little Pigs The Untold Story!”
©Sudha Hamilton – excerpt from his book House Therapy: Discovering who you really are at home.
