Picture-Book Retellings of "The Three Little Pigs": Postmodern Parody, Intertextuality, and Metafiction

The article explores two exceptionally witty and innovatively subversive variants of "The Three Little Pigs," David Wiesner's The Three Pigs and Eugene Trivizas's The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. Utilizing metafiction, parody, and intertextuality, both retellings question existing narratives and help readers consider the refashioning of prescribed ideologies. Trivizas's version comments on humankind's attachment to technological progress at the expense of withdrawal from nature; it also questions one's relationship with one's enemy. Wiesner's transformation leaves the old tale behind in order to explore the mechanics of fiction. By reinventing the old, these picture books invite a re-examination of societal and literary codes.