Neil Gaiman's The Wolves In The Wall

In The Wolves in the Walls, author Neil Gaiman tells the story of a girl named Lucy who is convinced that there are wolves living in the walls of her family’s house. She tells everyone in her family what she is hearing and none of them believe her. One night actual wolves break out of the walls, which forces the family to relocate to the garden outside. Lucy, having forgot her pig puppet in the frenzy, goes back to the house and sneaks around the home through the walls. She retrieves her pig puppet and goes back the garden. Her family is trying to decide where they should move to, but Lucy does not want to leave her house and suggests that they take up residence in the walls. The family reluctantly agree, however, when the walls are deemed too …show more content…

Dave McKean’s illustrations themselves open up many items to study. The family in the work are crafted in a style distinct from the other art. The wolves were line drawings, the jam jars and books were photographs, and much of the interiors and exteriors were paintings. This made each item stand out in its own right. There is much to study on the literary side too. The parallelism between the family, the wolves, and later, the elephant is quite clear and is what the story is structured around. There were also many symbols in the work. The house could be seen as a symbol of the family itself and their shared memories, explaining Lucy’s want to return to it. The pig puppet is a symbol of friendship, because Lucy would do anything for the puppet and it is the only thing that believes Lucy about what is in the walls. Repetition is very strong in this, and in most children’s books. The repetition of the sayings from Lucy’s mom, dad, and brother is used for humor and to drive home the fact that no one believes Lucy. There are many items one could analyze in this