"Pilon’s Pig" also narrates a revolt against oppression. In this case, the protagonist is forced to take a troop car on his return home after being discharged from the army.  He meets a fellow soldier he trained with in boot camp who was known then as Hong “Dunghead” for his simplicity and lack of formal education. The train car is taken over by a few elite marine special forces members, who begin to extort money from the ordinary soldiers.  Suddenly the tables are turned, and the soldiers revolt against their oppressors and begin to beat them mercilessly. As the situation turns desperate, the protagonist slips into another car to find Hong “Dunghead” was already there.  Both are thus able to avoid the aftermath when the melee is finally broken up by the military police. The last paragraph relates the legend of “Pilon’s Pig”. As noted in a review by Charles Montgomery, it refers to a legend about a great skeptical philosopher, Pyrrho of Elis. The story goes that when he was caught in a storm at sea, his fellow passengers were in despair. Nevertheless, Pyrrho remained calm. When asked how he kept his composure he pointed to a pig that was happily eating as if nothing were amiss and said “that this is the unperturbed way a wise man should live in all situations” In a critique of the novel included in the afterword of the bilingual edition (Korean and English), Bak Choel-hwa considered the work an allegory depicting the dark side of Korean society and commented that if Hong is the "pig" then the protagonist is "a member of the powerless educated class, a "Pilon" who makes no attempt to stop the madness".