User:Atcovi/Summer Reading 2018-19/A Prayer for Owen Meany

Work: Fiction

Genre (novel, play, memoir, etc): Novel

Author:	John Irving

Time period(s) of the setting of the work: 1950s and the 1980s

Research and cite important information (in an ample paragraph) regarding the time period(s): In the book, this statement, "And what would the canon have said if I'd told him that the Christmas of '53 [1953] put the finishing touches on Christmas for me?" (Irving 230), is in reference to the Christmas of the year that Johnny's mother, Tabitha Wheelwright, died. In the 1950s, the Wheelwrights, including Johnny, lived in Gravesend, New Hampshire. The Wheelwright family's Christmas of '53 was a very poor Christmas compared to their previous celebrations ("The first Christmas following my mother's death was the first Christmas I didn't spend in Sawyer Depot. My grandmother told Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred that if the family were all together, my mother's absence would be too apparent" (Irving 150). Many dates in the book are of the late 1980s, such as in "The Armadillo" ("Today---January 30, 1987--it is snowing in Toronto" (Irving 91)) and "The Voice" ("Toronto: May 14, 1987--another sunny morning, but rain developing" (Irving 332)). Johnny Wheelwright moved to Canada in 1971 during the Vietnam War: "More than thirty thousand Canadians served in Vietnam, too. And almost as many Americans came to Canada during the Vietnam War; I was one of them--one who stayed. By March of 1971--when Lt. William Calley was convicted of premeditated murder--I was already a landed immigrant, I'd already applied for Canadian citizenship" (Irving 95).

Give a 2-3 sentence plot summary: John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany shows two friends, Johnny Wheelwright and Owen Meany living normal lives as kids. These normal lives turned dark after the summer of 1953, after Johnny Wheelwright's mother, Tabitha Wheelwright, was killed by a well-stricken ball by Johnny's friend, Owen Meany, during a baseball game. With a mix of Christianity and rambling of politics, Johnny and Owen move on from the dreadful slaughter and live normal, but entertaining, lives.

List the key characters and give a brief description of each:
 * 1) Johnny Wheelwright - A Canadian-American who was born and grew up in America (Gravesend, New Hampshire). He is the main character.
 * 2) Owen Meany - An American who is riddled with unfortunate disabilities and an extremely high pitched voice. He is Johnny's best friend.
 * 3) Tabitha Wheelwright - The mother of Johnny Wheelwright, who is killed by Owen Meany's perfectly struck ball in the summer of 1953 during a baseball game. She is described as an extremely beautiful woman who had an amazing singing voice.
 * 4) Harriet Wheelwright - Grandmother of Johnny Wheelwright and mother of Tabitha Wheelwright. An old lady who is accompanied by maids, such as Lydia and Germaine.
 * 5) Dan Needham - Johnny's stepfather and Tabitha's husband. He is the only one who truly understands Johnny unlike other men.
 * 6) Randy White - The new headmaster for Gravesend Academy. He is the one who kicked out Owen Meany out of Gravesend Academy due to his dislike for the student.
 * 7) Hester - Johnny's cousin who his best friend, Owen, seems to be romantically interested; Sister to Simo and Noah; Children of Aunt Martha, Tabitha's sister.
 * 8) Simon - Johnny's cousins; Brother of Noah and Hester; Children of Aunt Martha, Tabitha's sister.
 * 9) Noah - Johnny's cousins; Brother of Simon and Hester; Children of Aunt Martha, Tabitha's sister.

Describe the author’s style, noting any distinctive features (plural): '''Explain the author’s distinctive word choices. Furnish at least 2 examples per chapter.''' (Also, be prepared to defend your explanation in class).
 * 1) Whenever Owen Meany speaks [in the book], he is always characterized by capital letters ("In Sunday school, when we held Owen up in the air--especially, in the air!--he protested so uniquely. We tortured him, I think, in order to hear his voice; I used to think his voice came from another planet. Now I'm convinced it was a voice not entirely of this world. "PUT ME DOWN!" he would say in a strangled, emphatic falsetto. "CUT IT OUT! I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. PUT ME DOWN! YOU ASSHOLES!" (John Irving 7)). This is due to his unique, high-pitched voice. This gives readers a good perspective about Owen Meany and how he sounds like.
 * 2) Sexual, graphic language is used in the book, enhancing the book's field of language. An example of this type of language being used is when Johnny was forced to kiss Hester on the lips in a game of "Last One Through The House Has to Kiss Hester": "We opened our mouths. There was the problem of arranging the noses before we could enjoy the nervous exchange of saliva--the slithery contact of tongues, the surprising click of teeth. We were joined so long we had to breathe, and I was astonished at how sweet my cousin's breath was; to this day, I hope mine wasn't too bad" (Irving 61). Another example is Hester's remark on touching Johnny's erection (or "hard-on", as described): "And what did they make of the time they untied us and Hester said to me, "I felt your hard-on"? "You did not!" I said. "I did. It wasn't much of a hard-on," she said. "It was no big deal. But I felt it." "You didn't!" I said. "I did," she said.
 * 3) The author constantly switches the time periods repeatedly in the book. This shift is usually from the 1950s in Gravesend, New Hampshire to the late 1980s in Toronto, Canada. An example of this is in "The Armadillo", pages 90-91: "...but Owen's idea---that God's reasoning was somehow predetermining Owen's every move--came from much more than that one unlucky swing and crack of the bat. As you shall see." (Irving 90) to "Today--January 30, 1987--it is snowing in Toronto" (Irving 91). I've personally never seen this in any other book, and I find it unique and intriguing since it provides two different stories in a short amount of pages in the chapter.

Chapter 1

 * 1) "I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice--not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death" (Irving 3)
 * 2) *Foreshadowing is being depicted here. The foreshadowing by the author already hooks up the reader into this book.
 * 3) "PUT ME DOWN!" he would say in a strangled, emphatic falsetto. "CUT IT OUT! I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS ANYMORE. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. PUT ME DOWN! YOU ASSHOLES!" (Irving 7)
 * 4) *The language being used in this book carries more perspective to the reader. The word, "assholes", represents Owen's feelings about being held up in the air during class.

Chapter 2

 * 1) "...but he was sufficiently worked up about my mother's and my Owen departure from his church to offer his opinions as if he were speaking from the pulpit." (Irving 39)
 * 2) *Mr. Irving enhances his book with figurative language--this case with a simile.
 * 3) "My mother and my grandmother and I--and Lydia, minus one of her legs--were eating dinner on a Thursday evening..." (Irving 42)
 * 4) *Mr. Irving uses humour to attract readers to the book.
 * 5) "Curiosity, which--in New Hampshire, in those days--was often said to be responsible for the death of cats." (Irving 46)
 * 6) *A reference to a popular saying: "Curiosity killed the cat".

Chapter 3

 * 1) "It made him furious when I suggested that anything was an "accident"--especially anything that had happened to him; on the subject of predestination, Owen Meany would accuse Calvin of bad faith. There were no accidents; there was a reason for that baseball--just as there was a reason for Owen being small, and a reason for his voice. In Owen's opinion, he had INTERRUPTED AN ANGEL, he had DISTURBED AN ANGEL AT WORK, he had UPSET THE SCHEME OF THINGS." (Irving 105)
 * 2) *The author shows the reader how religious Owen is and how he always connects every-day events to religion.
 * 3) "Dan came from a very high-powered family; they were doctors and lawyers, and they disapproved of Dan of not completing a more serious education [and going into acting]. To have started out at Harvard and not gone on to law school, not gone on to medical school--this was criminal laziness..." (Irving 112)
 * 4) *The author shows the readers about Dan Needham's, one of the key characters in the book, background. This opens up readers to wonder, "Does this mean Dan is not very intelligent?", "Is Dan still a very intelligent person?", "Will he be a good role model/stepfather for Johnny?".

Chapter 4

 * 1) "The first Christmas following my mother's death was the first Christmas I didn't spend in Sawyer Depot. My grandmother told Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred that if the family were all together, my mother's absence would be too apparent" (Irving 150)
 * 2) *The author exemplifies the sorrow that the Wheelwright family is going through due to the loss of Tabitha Wheelwright, Johnny's mother (even after several months when Tabitha was killed). This brings in questions about the family's emotional state and how they are going to move on from this tragic, unfortunate death.
 * 3) "'Twas not the season to be jolly--although dear Dan Needham tried. Dan drank too much..." (Irving 151)
 * 4) *I felt like this was an oxymoron stated by Mr. Irving since alcohol makes people who are sad or depressed even worse rather than not cheering up/bringing joy to people. Dan is trying to be even happier, but in reality, he's just getting even more depressed (situational irony).

Chapter 5

 * 1) "And I, Joseph--forever standing in the wings--saw what the envious Virgin Mary failed to see. I saw it, and I'm sure Barb Wiggin saw it, too--I'm sure it was why she so shamelessly continued to torture him. The Baby Jesus [Owen Meany] had an erection ; its protrusion was visible in spite of the tightly bound layers of his swaddling clothes." (Irving 218)
 * 2) *The sentence, "The Baby Jesus had an erection", (and putting "Baby Jesus" instead of "Owen") was to put the awkwardness in Owen's sexual gratification (Owen) during his role as "Baby Jesus" which resulted from a sexual encounter with Barb Wiggin, a stewardess, and wife of Rector Captain Wiggin. It also provides a sense of humour as well.
 * 3) "Don't be sorry! [in response to Johnny apologizing for not being very Christian by being angry]" the canon [Canon Mackie] said cheerfully. "Try to be a little... different!" The man's pauses are almost as irritating as his advice. (Irving 228)
 * 4) *John Irving managed to word his sentence using figurative language (using a harsh word like "irritating" instead of "annoying") and good timing (used right after the canon's advice that had a pause) so well that it managed to make the readers (me) feel what Johnny was feeling. I felt irritated like I was right there when I was reading this part of page 228.

Chapter 6

 * 1) ""Until everything's in color, and the color's perfect, TV's not worth watching."" (Irving 272)
 * 2) *This statement by Hester puts us into her perspective of non-colorized TV, which seems to be described as "not worth watching". This was in the 1950s where the non-colorized TV wasn't available in every household like in today's time. I feel this view of non-colorized TV is pretty intriguing as I wonder, "Is this what all 1950s kids thought? Or was it just a minority of kids like Hester?".
 * 3) ""WHAT A BIG FUSS ABOUT A BLANKET!" Owen said. "THAT'S SO CATHOLIC," he added--"TO GET VERY RELIGIOUS ABOUT OBJECTS." This was a theme of Owen's--the Catholics and their adoration of OBJECTS. Yet Owens habit of collecting objects that he made (in his own way) RELIGIOUS was well known: I had only to remember my armadillo's claws."
 * 4) *The author points out the irony in Owen's statement. He is ridiculing the Catholics for making objects religious, while he has done the same by using Johnny's armadillo in a religious way.

Chapter 7

 * 1) "...what he had expressed to me, symbolically, when he was eleven and had mutilated my armadillo. "GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER," he said to me, when I was complaining about practicing the shot [basketball shot]; I thought he would never slam-dunk the [basketball] ball in under four seconds, and I was bored with all our trying. "MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT," he said. "GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS. I AM GOD'S INSTRUMENT." (Irving 343)
 * 2) *This is Owen's reasoning for cutting off the armadillo's claws. Owen's reasoning makes readers wonder if there are more "religious" scenes where Owen will be, somehow, used as "God's instrument". When I read this statement, I was pretty interested in Owen's character and his way of thinking since I've never seen someone use themselves as "God's instrument", thus making me interested in the book (since Owen is a key character I'll be able to see him A LOT in this book). The author uses "God" as a way of making Owen an interesting character (religious character).

Chapter 8

 * 1) "Until the summer of 1962, I felt that I couldn't wait to grow up and be treated with the kind of respect I imagined adults were routinely offered and adamantly thought they deserved..." (Irving 423)
 * 2) *Foreshadowing is already taking place at the beginning of Chap. 8. It made me wonder, "what happened during the summer of 1962? Did something tragic happen again like what happened in the summer of 1953?".
 * 3) "It was the first summer we [Owen and Johnny] spent apart. I suppose I should be grateful for that summer, because it afforded me my first glimpse of what my life without Owen would be like--you might say, it prepared me. By the end of the summer of 1962, Owen Meany had me afraid of what the next phase was going to be. I didn't want to grow up anymore..." (Irving 423)
 * 4) "I spent that summer of '62 in Sawyer Depot, working for my Uncle Alfred." (Irving 424)
 * 5) *This is the summer of 1962 which Johnny realized that being an adult is not an easy lifestyle, but rather a life of responsibility and difficulty. This allows connections to take place between the reader, as it made me think about how my life will be when I'm not a kid anymore and I become an adult.

Chapter 9

 * 1) "Our own Gravesend chief of police, Ben Pike, stood at the heavy double doors of Hurd's Church--as if he intended to frisk Owen Meany's mourners for the "murder weapon," the long-lost "instrument of death"; I was tempted to tell the bastard where he could fin the f'ucking baseball." (Irving 568)
 * 2) *The author provides a short reference back to chapter 1 when Ben Pike asked for the "murder weapon", which basically was the Owen-strucked baseball that killed Tabitha Wheelwright in the summer of 1953. It was a gleeful experience being able to remember back to chapter one, but I can't help but think: Does Johnny seriously still have a grudge against Ben Pike for saying that after all these years?
 * 3) "I guess we were wrong about your little friend," Colonel Eiger said to me. "Yes, sir," I said. "He proved he was quite suitable for combat," Colonel Eiger said. (Irving 569)
 * 4) *I thought it was pretty distinctive for Irving to mention this since I feel that Irving was trying to make more connections with the readers of the book. He achieved that if that was his attention. It made me boil with anger reading this statement since, just like Owen, I've always been underestimated for my potential in athletics and education. It must've been annoying for Owen himself to be underestimated as well. The author managed to make his readers connect with the story.

Idea related to the first question

 * 1) Justice towards Owen Meany was shown by Johnny. He didn't break his friendship with Owen although Owen killed his mom. Johnny showing no hatred for Owen can be shown in "The Voice", page 310: "The school psychiatrist--a retired Swiss gentleman who returned, every summer, to Zürich--was convinced that my difficulties as a student were the result of my best friend's "murder" of my mother, and the "tensions and conflicts" that he saw as the "inevitable result" of my dividing my life between my grandmother and my stepfather. "At times, you must hate him---yes?" Dr. Dolder mused. "Hate who?" I asked. "My stepfather? No--I love Dan!". 'Your best friend--at times, you hate him. Yes?" Dr. Dolder asked. "No!" I said. "I love Owen--it was an accident."" (Irving 311). It is right that Johnny continues to hold his friendship with Owen even after the unfortunate slaughtering of Johnny's mother, as the unexpected murder was clearly an accident and Owen displayed tons of remorse, as evident in: "Owen and I were eleven; we had no other way to articulate what we felt about what had happened to my mother. He gave me his baseball cards, but he really wanted them back..." (Irving 88). Owen loved the baseball cards he gave to Johnny, as they were like a prized gift for Owen. This is shown in "...he [Owen Meany] left the cartons at the back door and ran quickly to the cab, and Mr. Meany drove the granite truck out of the driveway, still in the very lowest gear. In the cartons were all of Owen's baseball cards, his entire collection. My grandmother was appalled, but for several years she didn't understand Owen or appreciate him; to her, he was "that boy," or "that little guy," or "that voice." I knew the baseball cards were Owen's favorite things, they were what amounted to his treasure" (Irving 83-84). Even Johnny's cousin, Hester, knew Owen was very saddened by the death of Tabitha, as shown in: "Just remember," she said, "your friend Owen feels worse than you." (Irving 141).
 * 2) Freedom was also shown after the major conflict (killing of Johnny's mom) when Johnny let go of any anger that must've arisen to Owen after Owen's perfectly struck ball hit Tabitha. By Johnny letting these feelings go, he is able to move on with his life and not have any hatred towards Owen, who was very evidently remorseful for the killing. In "The Armadillo", Johnny was outraged that Owen took away the claws of a toy armadillo that was given to Owen in exchange for Owen's baseball cards, as seen in: "But my greatest indignation was to follow: missing from the armadillo were the little animal's front claws--the most useful and impressive parts of its curious body. Owen had returned the armadillo, but he'd kept the claws! Well--friendship being one thing, and the armadillo quite another--I was so outraged by this discovery that I needed to talk to Dan Needham" (Irving 88). Later, Johnny realized that what Dan said about Owen's intentions for leaving the claws off the armadillo (""Your friend is most orginal," Dan Needham said, with the greatest respect. "Don't you see, Johnny? If he could, he would cut off his hands for you--that how it makes him feel"" (Irving 89)) was correct and Johnny had no point in being angry at Owen as he figured out Owen's true meaning behind the removal of the armadillo's claws. The text to which supports this idea comes from "The Armadillo", page 89: "Just before I fell asleep, I realized that everything Dan had said about Owen's intentions was correct. How much it has meant to my life that Dan Needham was almost never wrong! I was not as familiar with Wall's History of Gravesend as I became when I was eighteen and read the whole thing for myself; but I was familiar witht hose parts of it that Owen Meany considered "important." And just before I fell asleep, I also recognized my armadillo for what it was--in addition to all those things Dan had told me. My armadillo had been amputtated to resemble Watahantowet's totem, the tragic and mysterious armless man--for weren't the Indians wise enough to understand that everything had its own soul, its own spirit?" (Irving 89-90).

Idea related to the second question

 * 1) By Johnny being friends with Owen, as evident in the book (an example is when Johnny was defending Owen in relation to an incident where Owen made a sexual comment to another student's mom: ""She [Mitzy Lish] was rude to him [Owen]" I [Johnny] pointed out to the headmaster. "SHE MADE FUN OF ME BEING THE CLASS VALEDICTORIAN," said Owen Meany. "She laughed out loud at Owen," I said to Randy White. "She laughed in his face--she bullied him," I added." (Irving 383)), Johnny achieved strength to move on from Owen's unfortunate slaughtering of Tabitha Wheelwright. He seems to live a happy and fulfilled life with little-no rants/sobs about his mom's death and/or Owen's actions.
 * 2) A major turning point in the book is when Owen's new location, Toronto in Canada, is mentioned (see "More than thirty thousand Canadians served in Vietnam, too. And almost as many Americans came to Canada during the Vietnam War; I was one of them--one who stayed. By March of 1971--when Lt. William Calley was convicted of premeditated murder--I was already a landed immigrant, I'd already applied for Canadian citizenship" (Irving 95)). The purpose of this move was to escape the Vietnam War, as it is obvious from "It was Owen Meany who kept me out of Vietnam--a trick that only Owen could have managed" (Irving 96). By moving to Canada, he avoided the obligatory drafting from the US army.


 * 1) How are justice and freedom revealed through the major conflicts in the selections?
 * 2) Explore the ways the author demonstrates unity versus isolation through characterization in the selections.  In this context, how does the character gain strength or purpose?