Reader Response

Kerianne

The World According to Garp is by far one of the most bizarre, yet interesting, works of literature I have ever read. From it's descriptive opening to its climactic end, "Garp" kept me on my toes and leaving me wanting more after every chapter. At several different points of the story, I found myself as a reader trying to decide whether I should be shocked and disgusted, or if I should just throw my head back and laugh. The book and it's many key events seemed just SO far-fetched that I could actually imagine them happening! Garp's very conception was such a ludicrous and outrageously awkward scene that I actually found myself blushing with embarrassment. Or how about the fact that the "water bottles" Jenny's mother kept sending her were actually… hygienic products; for a lack of better words. What mother would send that sort of private and personal item to her own child? Then there's Roberta, the football player turned transvestite. Sounds absurd? Well, I sort of remember a certain yellow haired basketball player dressing up in a wedding gown once in my life… However, the very idea of these things are so
ridiculous and so appalling that you just can't help but laugh! Conversely, at the climactic scene of the horrific car crash, I felt sincere pain of the characters involved. I was actually concerned for the well being of the boys and Garp (not so much for Helen or her lover) and yet I still noticed myself laughing a bit. (If that makes me a bad person, oh well.)

The sexual tension of the book, both from Garp and his mother and their different views on sexuality take this book to a whole new level. To think Garp, as rather sexual being, came from a woman so prude and disgusted with the act is rather ironic. Due to this fact, I found it humorous that Jenny actually hired a hooker to sleep with her son. Could this be the same woman who stabbed a guy for trying to pick her up at the movies? Apparently, The World According to Garp was one of the most ludicrous books I have read in my entire life. Needless to say, I will always remember it. But not just because it was so obscure but because it was so memorable, so well written, and actually, so good. Though I would never have picked this book on my own to read, I'm so glad I did because I know it's one book that will always stay with me. The World According to Garp is a good read and one amazing book.

Lust, one of the main themes of The World According to Garp

Rachel K.

Since sex is besides death one of the thematic obsessions in Irving’s The World According to Garp, he is able to mirror the different opinions concerning sexuality and lust, through Jenny Fields on the one side and through Garp on the other side. Lust is a major theme in The World According to Garp. Garp, one of the main characters, is overcome by lust throughout the story. Between Helen, who later becomes his wife, prostitutes in Vienna, and sleeping with another man’s wife, he lets lust consume him at various points in the story.

John Irving’s novel The World According to Garp gives the reader a view on the lives of its characters and, as a part of it, their attitudes towards lust and sexuality. The description of these aspects is very direct and may be offensive for some more conservative persons. Even for persons who tend to be liberal-minded, Irving’s way of writing about sex can be uncommon, although he uses lust and sexuality only to tell the story and not for sensational reasons. Despite the fact that people expected more from the sexual liberation in the 1960s and 1970s, there was indeed a change in attitude towards certain aspects, such as premarital and extramarital sex. Another important change which derived from the liberation movement was the new female sexuality, especially concerning the sexual fulfillment of women before and during marriage. This is also proved by a decreasing support of the “double standard”, where men are more or less allowed to be sexual active, including premarital and even extramarital sex, but women are not.

In such an unpredictable and therefore uncontrollable world, the most ambiguous of all forces will be the most basic: sex. According to Garp, "Human sexuality makes farcical our most serious intentions" (p. 224). So we have here the splendid symbol of Roberta Muldoon, the six-foot, four-inch former tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles. She has paid for her sex-change operation with lecture fees from men’s and boy’s club banquets. Further, she is pronounced by Jenny Fields, Garp’s mother, as less sexually ambiguous than most. She retains, nevertheless, her instinctive ability to clip a menacing male in such a way as to produce the maximum knee injury—the kind that once would have earned her a fifteen-yard penalty. She articulates her discoveries about the sexes succinctly: "Oh, I didn’t know what shits men were till I became a woman" (p. 305). She alone dies perfectly, absolutely happy.

In this world in which clear sexual rules and distinctions constantly, absurdly, blur, a son goes "a grieving ex-wrestler in drag for his mother’s funeral" (p. 492). The most dutiful husband and the best father around still seduces babysitters and best friends and still yearns for the aging body of the worst mother in town. The wife who is usually faithful by choice still engages in two extended and disastrous affairs. Lust is followed by more lust, but deviance from straight-and-narrow monogamy is still punished as if by all the furies. In Irving’s most stunning and realistically explained episode, the very climax of all the carefully woven themes of the book, the wife’s adultery damages everyone severely. But as life imitates dreams, so a jealous husband’s ultimate fantasy comes true. His wife’s lover loses his penis. All of it, eventually, after she accidentally bites it off.

Nothing in this world is sacred, safe, or intact for long. According to Garp. "Hope is . . . a strong survivor of a weak man’s world" (p. 447), but "Everything has really happened sometime" and "every story can be improved" (p. 458). In Jenny’s famous sentence, "In this dirty-minded world you are either somebody’s wife or somebody’s whore—or fast on your way to becoming one or the other" (p. 157). In Garp’s world, a lusty young couple can feel they’ve skipped middle age and moved to retirement, for they find that the world is a barely firm sponge.

The World According to Garp is concerned with all the various types of love. The love between parents and children is demonstrated first by the relationship between Jenny and Garp and then by the relationship Helen and Garp have with their children. Garp loves his children so powerfully that he is overprotective. Irving also examines the love between husband and wife. Garp and Helen love each other so fiercely that their marriage is able to withstand several catastrophes. There are also many loving friendships in the book; for instance, Garp and Roberta Muldoon become extremely close and loving friends. The novel also examines the nature of lust. Garp believes that his mother is somewhat cold because she doesn't experience lust, but Jenny recognizes that lust can often be disastrous. She takes care of dozens of women at Dog's Head Harbor who have been victims of lust. Garp's own life is affected by lust. First of all, Garp contracts gonorrhea in Austria when he runs into a trio of American tourists and he can't control his baser instincts. Garp also threatens his marriage when he has brief flings with babysitters. Finally, Helen's lust leads her into an affair that almost destroys the family.

Theme: Changes in Characters By: KarlS

Over the course of one’s lifetime, it is inevitable that some type of change will occur within them. In John Irving’s novel, The World According to Garp, the main character, Garp, undergoes a plethora of changes that ultimately shape the type of person he becomes.

For the first half of Garp’s life, his mother Jenny, who appears to be afraid of what the world has in store for her one and only son, constricts his life into what she wants. She shelters him to ensure that nothing bad happens to him, and to make sure that he does not cause other people problems. It quickly becomes clear that Jenny is used to being alone from her childhood, and does not wish to deviate from that in raising her son. In a way, she feels attached to him, and believes that she is all that he has, and vice versa. For this reason, Jenny attempts to treat him the only way she knows how, as if he was herself. When Jenny is introduced to Helen, and she is greeted as if she is Helen’s mother, she experiences a very strange feeling. “Jenny would also remember how it felt to be hugged like a mother, and would even note in her autobiography, how a daughter’s hug was different from a son’s. It is at least ironic that her one experience for making such a pronouncement occurred that December day in the giant gymnasium erected to the memory of Miles Seabrook.”(Page 84). This shows that Jenny, although she loved her son Garp, had never felt emotion like the one she experienced when Helen hugged her. This goes on to reinforce the concept that Jenny saw Garp as more of an extension of her, an item so to speak, than a son to which she was the parent.

As the novel progresses, the story’s setting is not the only thing that changes. When Jenny and Garp arrive in Vienna, Austria, a dramatic transformation occurs. Although there is still the common goal between Garp and Jenny to become writers, the way through which they try to achieve this goal is vastly different. Jenny rather than going out and about, chooses to stay home, in a way secluded from the outside world, and just focuses on her writing. The language difference serves as a barrier, much like the one that Jenny had put on Garp when she limited what he could and could not do as a child. Now Jenny is the one being separated and alone to focus on her work. Garp on the other hand has become much more animated and chooses to live the life on the go. He is in charge of going out and shopping for Jenny and himself, as well as cooking. It seems as if Jenny and Garp completely reversed roles in Austria, primarily because since Garp knew the language and Jenny didn’t. Garp was able to communicate enough with the locals to receive and give information. This change makes it as if Jenny has become the inferior and dependant member of this family, and Garp has matured enough to be responsible and take care of his needy mother. This reversal of roles also touches on jumping the barrier between gender roles. It seems rare that a growing young man like Garp would result back to cooking meals for himself and his mother, but in this case, a situation is thrown at him and he responds very well. The Steering school, and constantly being around all of the older boys, as well as Garp’s sexual experiences, have helped him mature very quickly and learn at an astonishing rate how to take care of himself, and many valuable life lessons.

It is ironic that Irving has Garp mature the way he did, primarily because of his father. Both of this story’s Garps had their lives drastically affected by Jenny, sex, and tremendous changes. In Garp’s father’s case, he was mobile and active until the war, and then was turned into a crippled man both physically and mentally. Garp himself however is the complete opposite. He started off secluded from everyone, and being restricted, and then essentially grew his wings and quickly took off into the world to experience it for himself. This contrast that is used shows that although they maybe be referred to by the same names, that does not mean that Garp has to follow in the footsteps of his father. Everyone is their own individual, and the life experiences that they go through determine how they will change and form their own unique personality. This is one major idea behind Jenny’s famous book, “A Sexual Suspect”, which highlights some major ideas about people being stifled by society and not able to express how they truly feel about everything. The primary factor in the maturing of a person is the changes that they face in their lives, and how they react to them.

In Irving’s novel, without a doubt, the main characters go through a wide array of changes that force them to adapt to whatever is thrown at them and move on with their lives. Although throughout the novel, Jenny and Garp constantly switch roles and transform themselves into two completely different people than from when they first arrived at the Steering School, both of them showed great deals of maturing and shaping their new lives. Garp and Jenny’s lives prove that destiny does not ultimately shape one’s life, but rather it is shaped by the modifications that one must face in an ever-changing society in order to survive.

Thematic Analysis (Garp, Ch. 7-9)

John Irving's peculiar and often controversial themes make quite the appearance in his novel, The World According to Garp. His main themes in this novel include feminism, lust, and disgust, an odd combination if there ever was one. These themes give the book a certain, distorted light to be viewed in, as each is closely associated with assertion and stereotyping. Irving's talent for juxtaposing rationality with bold, plain ignorance allows the reader to read the novel from each character's point of view more easily, hence it's fascination with the concept of the world always being according to somebody. What makes the thematic nature of the novel work is that every theme plays into or builds upon one another (lust encourages feminism, which generates disgust, which only provides more fuel to the feminist fire, etc.).

T.S. Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, represents the feminist angle of the novel, along with her accomplices (or "goons" as Garp titled them) such as the Ellen Jamesians. Her acceptance of her averse nature toward sex, her asexuality, if you will, makes her the perfect candidate for the novel's feminist movement, as well as for the feminist theme. The overwhelming sense of feminism secretly gives the reader an early feeling of dislike towards any male character, including the protaganist, Garp. Even one of the first scenes, in which Jenny technically rapes Garp's vegetable-like father shortly before his death in order to conceive with no strings attached, portrays women in not truly a positive, but a powerful light, as if the men were the weaker sex, and the women the dominant, controlling one. Though Garp's father cannot and does not resist, he does not necessarily decline, making men in the novel appear as primitive, retrogressive beasts who cannot control their lust and thirst for satisfaction (though in Jenny's world "need" for satisfaction would be more fitting). Jenny's feeling of control obviously provides her with the sense of security she desires, though her reserved, conservative nature would not even appear to require such things. Oddly enough, this reluctance to be a person of power, of control, of a status of leadership, projects her into the spotlight as the feminist movement's head, especially with the publishing of her book, A Sexual Suspect. Despite such an action being very risky, Irving often plays with Jenny's reluctance towards being a leader and Garp's disgust at the behavior of some of Jenny's loyal followers. Garp hates the behavior of the Ellen Jamesians, believing them to be mindless women who stupidly subject themselves to the real Ellen James' torture, and that by cutting their own tongues off, they are eliminating the only effective method of conveying their feminist feelings.

--Matt Ozoria

Symbolic Analysis (Ch.1-Ch.3) By: KarlS

Almost every literary work has some form of symbolic reference. The World According to Garp, by John Irving, is no exception. I found that the most prevalent symbol in the book was Jenny Fields son, Garp himself. He represents not only a single mother’s son, but also Jenny’s unique, ever-changing views of the world around her concerning what is socially acceptable.

Garp’s birth was the result of his mother, Jenny, having sex with an injured, dying soldier in a hospital bed. Right of the bat, it becomes apparent that this child was no ordinary child. Early on in the novel, Jenny mentions that she receives packages regularly from her mother, but she never opens them and always simply tosses them into her closet. When she finally curiously opens one, she discovers that her mother has been sending her douche bags all this time. By suggesting that Jenny was sexually active and irresponsible, it shows that her mother was trying to essentially cleanse her, and make her pure. This can be expanded upon to show that since Jenny’s child-to-be represents her releasing her emotions and feelings, her mother was trying to suppress these feelings and make sure that they do not get out. Jenny was shocked that her mother deemed her irresponsible, and thought so poorly of her, so when the baby is born, and Jenny has no husband, it shows that her mother’s plan to smother Jenny from the outside world actually backfired and Garp’s birth represents Jenny becoming more and more independent and developing her own thoughts and opinions.

Jenny’s pregnancy, and her eventual years of motherhood mark a new sense of both maturity and responsibility that she chooses to take on. In what is clearly a male-dominated time period, the feminist, Jenny Fields is outraged over the thought that her emotions must be stifled, and society could control her and tell her what she can and cannot do. Women are often deemed strange and out of place if they cannot find a husband, get married, and have a child. Since Jenny does not believe she is ready for a marriage, she does what she feels is the best thing, and chooses to have the baby of a badly injured solder.
When Garp is born, he becomes a symbol of her mother’s independence. There is no husband, just Garp and Jenny. As Jenny frequently tells people when they ask about Garp’s father, “The father of Garp was a soldier. The war killed him. Who took the time for weddings when there was a war?”(Page 35). This vague description about the history of how her son came to be, often gave off a mysterious aura. The haziness of the story leads many to suspect Jenny of something strange, however the story also fools many people into picturing a perfect scenario in which Jenny was a field nurse and her romantic lover was killed fighting gloriously for his nation before he could return home.
While Jenny and Garp live at the Steering School, Garp quickly matures, as does Jenny. Garp meets friends there, and Jenny more importantly, helps Garp to become his own individual person, much like she had become. As Garp grows, it appears that so does Jenny’s mind. By taking classes, reading books throughout Garp’s childhood, and becoming more scholarly, Jenny is learning not only how to be a good mother, but also a more scholarly, well-rounded individual. If it had not been for the birth of her child, she may have still been working as a nurse at Mercy Hospital. Rather her life is flourishing, she has somewhat of a family, and she can expand her mind further and further. Jenny takes pride in being a single mother, she does not want a husband in her life, and enjoys the idea that Garp is all she has, and vice versa. Garp is not only her son, but her motivation as well. When there is a daunting task, and she cant seem to get herself to do it, she remembers that she has a son now, and it is important for her to persevere through hardships and make her son stronger. More importantly, Jenny is never discouraged by the views of people around her. If someone judges her for being a single mom, then oh well, there is nothing she can do about that except continuing to live her life. Garp at times can be somewhat of an object, which with the story that goes along with his father shows that Jenny broke away from the social norm and chose to live the life that she wanted to live. As Garp continues to mature and expand his knowledge at the Steering School, his mother will continue to read to teach herself, as well as learning from everything that Garp does as a child.

From the beginning of the novel it was clear that Jenny had many views on the constricting society in which she lived. At times however, it was difficult to express these feelings because of the public’s stringent views on what should and should not be. The birth of her child and his maturing gave Jenny an opportunity to express herself through him. Just his existence alone was a bold statement against social views and in favor of both choice and individuality. Garp and his growth is a symbol of Jenny’s feelings and opinions that she cannot articulate to the world around her. As Garp continues growing, I expect Jenny to become more and more revealing of her inner thoughts on society’s views and what is deemed “right”.

Gender Roles (Ch.1-Ch.3) By: KarlS

In John Irving’s novel, The World According to Garp, one social and political aspect that the author addresses is the never-ending battle over gender roles. From right at the start of the story, it is apparent that Irving is showing the main character, Jenny Fields’ attempt to prove society wrong, and show that she is an individual capable of anything, and not merely a subordinate woman.

The first concept of the story that was gender based was Jenny’s profession. She was a nurse. A job primarily for woman, and often overlooked by males. In the medical world, there is the constant assumption that all males are doctors, and all women are nurses. This is of course false. As Irving makes it clear, Jenny’s job is not simply to stand around and aid a male doctor. She is her own individual person, and has both a job and life full of hardships. When Jenny attends a movie and is confronted by a solider in the theater, who tries to touch her inappropriately, she defends herself with a medical scalpel that she carries around for that very reason; self-defense. When the police arrive at the scene to assist the bleeding man, everyone immediately suspects Jenny of wrongdoing. “ ‘A girl alone has to protect herself,’ Jenny said. ‘What could be more proper?’ But one of her brothers asked her if she could prove that she had not had previous relations with the man. ‘Confidentially,’ whispered the other one, ‘have you been dating this guy long?’”(Page 10). This goes to show just how contorted societies view on a subject like this is. Jenny was being attacked and protecting herself, and immediately, everyone including her own family suspect her of being promiscuous due to the fact that she was a woman, and woman were not supposed to be the aggressors. What would have been more socially acceptable it seems were if Jenny were to have let the soldier continue to assault her and not say a word. The fact that Irving uses a soldier as the attacker is significant because that represents a male-dominated job, which is supposed to represent the essence of what this country is about. In a way he did.

When Jenny finally checks what is in the packages that her mother is sending her, she realizes that she was far off, and they were actually douche bags. “Jenny knew that her mother, though she meant well, assumed that Jenny’s sexual activity was considerable and irresponsible.”(Page 12-13). This just strengthens the fact that Jenny’s role according to her family and others around her was to simply be a woman. “In this dirty-minded world, she thought, you are either somebody’s wife, or somebody’s whore—or fast on your way to becoming one or the other.”(Page 13). This goes to show how society at the time portrayed woman. It seems as if sex controlled everything. In one-way or another, everything branched back to the female being associated with sex. Prostitutes, housewives or even just everyday nurses such as Jenny; everything in their lives in one-way or another could be linked to sex. There was a constant social pressure on Jenny to find a man to settle down with and have a marriage. When Jenny suggested that she was fine all by herself, people started to thing that there was something wrong with her. Having a husband is a very life-altering task, and not one that should simply happen just for the sake of happening.

When Jenny becomes pregnant from the soldier in the hospital, Garp, it shows just how she feels about the gender roles present in society. By becoming impregnated from a dying soldier, she would receive a child, give him happiness, and more importantly to her, not have to worry about being attached to a man through marriage. She of course hides this fact from society when she becomes pregnant, because it is far from socially acceptable to do such a thing. Once the baby, fittingly named Garp, is born, Jenny is forced to take on the role of both a mother and father figure for the boy, since she is all that he has in this world. This is another way of Irving showing how Jenny feels about society and gender roles. She only wants what is best for her son. She does not care what she has to do, as it becomes clear that how the public perceives her does not matter to her. There are some times however, where a woman such as herself cannot do everything. Jenny being the kind-hearted person she is, had a difficult time disciplining Garp for climbing onto the roof at night, and risking his life. “Dean Bodger became one of the few people at the Steering School to endear himself to Jenny. He beckoned her aside and confided to her that, if she thought it useful, he would be glad to reprimand the boy—if Jenny thought that coming from Bodger, it would make a more lasting impression than any reprimand she could deliver.”(Page 51). This shows that males typically can be more disciplinarians than females, and Jenny’s child did at times need that in order to grow up properly.

Jenny Fields blocks out the reoccurring sexism and gender based biases in order to provide the best possible life for both her and her son. Society wants to make it so women become merely an object, or an accessory of a male. Jenny shows the world that this is not the case for her, and she lives the life she wants to live it, breaking all the social gender barriers in order to do what she thinks is right. She refuses to be controlled by others, and develops a life of freedom, both unique and more importantly, her own.

Feminism, an important part of The World According to Garp (reader response)

Rachel K.

Feminism is an essential part of The World According to Garp. Jenny is a true feminist and is devoted to her cause. Her book The Sexual Suspect is based around her feminist views and is her autobiography. Feminism is both an intellectual commitment and a political movement that seeks justice for women and the end of sexism in all forms. However, there are many different kinds of feminism. Feminists disagree about what sexism consists in, and what exactly ought to be done about it; they disagree about what it means to be a woman or a man and what social and political implications gender has or should have. Nonetheless, motivated by the quest for social justice, feminist inquiry provides a wide range of perspectives on social, cultural, and political phenomena. Important topics for feminist theory and politics include: the body, class and work, disability, the family, globalization, human rights, popular culture, race and racism, reproduction, science, the self, sex work, and sexuality.

Early feminists and primary feminist movements are often called the first wave and feminists after about 1960 the second wave. Second wave feminists were concerned with gaining full social and economic equality, having already gained almost full legal equality in many western nations. Increasingly, women recognized that campaigning was limited whilst women could not make their voices heard directly. The vote took 70 years to gain. It was not until 1928 that all women, not just those over 30 and of the right property qualifications, could legally vote. Despite arguments that women should accept merely local suffrage, or universal male suffrage, or limited suffrage, the suffragettes persevered. The rise of the Militant suffragettes and the contribution of a mass of women workers during war time pressurized the Government to grant limited suffrage. Now it is debatable as to how much impact the vote has actually had in campaigning for women's rights, but it was a crucial landmark in the history of feminism. In the 1940s and 50s, the war had challenged stereotypes in the workplace and so women began to enter the employment market in much larger numbers. It soon became apparent that some of the burden of family responsibility needed to be shifted onto the state. Together with the trade unions, the women's movement fought hard for a welfare state system which would provide this and act as a safety net for society's most vulnerable. The decades of the 1960s and 70s saw the radicalization of the feminist movement, led by American women. The mass entry of women into the workforce and the Pill changed women's traditional role within the family. Feminists demanded the right to abortion on demand, free childcare provision and equal pay.

The World According to Garp would not be such an important part of literature with out Jenny’s true devotion to feminism. John Irving truly captured the heart of the feminist movement in his book and this is what makes Jenny such a truly important character. Feminism has been around for a long time, but only in the last century has it become such a big part of global culture.

I belive that feminism has been an important part of American culutre. It is what helped to earn women the right to vote, and the right to be equals in the view of the law and in everyday life. Jenny, in the novel, is a true feminist. She is fighting hard for what she believes and recruits others to help her as well.