A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY

Published in 1989, A Prayer for Owen Meany is John Irving's seventh novel; it is also one of his most popular works. After its publication, it quickly became Irving's best-selling novel since his immensely popular work The World According to Garp came out in 1978. It is now not only a staple on high school reading lists, but it is also a novel that people love to read for the mere fact that it is so engaging and entertaining. It was even adapted (very loosely, however) for the 1998 film Simon Birch starring Ashley Judd and Jim Carrey. A huge number of cultural and literary references run throughout the text, but the novel was most clearly influenced by The Tin Drum by Günter Grass and the works of Charles Dickens. Like most of the novels that Irving has penned throughout his career, A Prayer for Owen Meany takes place in New England – the setting he creates makes you want to run out, put on a flannel shirt, and start drinking some apple cider. Owen Meany is set in the fictional town of Gravesend, New Hampshire, which is based on the real town of Exeter where Irving himself grew up. The novel follows the story of two boys: our narrator, John Wheelwright, and his best friend, Owen Meany, an unusual-looking boy with a voice that could give you goose bumps (and not in a good way). We watch the story unfold at two distinct periods in John's life: the first period covers his boyhood and adolescence, starting in 1948 when he is six years old and ending in July of 1968. The second period takes place in 1987 when John is 45 and living by himself in Toronto, Canada. Time isn't linear in Owen Meany; instead, John's narration goes back and forth in time, intertwining the events of his childhood with his observations from middle age. The central storyline kicks into gear in 1953 when the boys are eleven years old. Owen, who is no great athlete, is called up to bat when his baseball coach has a "what the heck" moment – their team is bound to lose, so he figures Owen should have a chance to play. Bad idea. Owen ends up hitting a foul ball that kills Johnny's mother. From there, we learn that Owen thinks that the event was no accident; he's convinced that he was carrying out the destiny ordained by God. He sees himself as "God's Instrument," and we spend the duration of the novel piecing together what Owen thinks this destiny of his is. This journey is filled with explorations of Owen's religious belief, as well as John's progression from not feeling any particular religious belief to becoming what he considers to be a "true believer." Beyond what seems to be a fantastic tale in many respects, Owen Meany also pushes us to look at events in American and world history through a more critical lens. As John narrates Owen's story, he infuses his narrative with sharp criticisms of the Vietnam War, the Iran-Contra affair, and American politics and policy in general. Don't let that turn you off, though, if you're not a history buff; at its heart, A Prayer for Owen Meany is a novel about family, friendship, and the quest to find some kind of answer when we feel like things around us are not going the way we'd like them to. Why Should I Care? OK, we'll be up front about it. There is a lot about A Prayer for Owen Meany that can feel sort of hard to relate to. First of all, Owen is totally over-the-top. There isn't just one thing that's weird about Owen. He's sort of like a living, breathing cartoon – he's a tiny, floppy-eared kid who's chock-full of religious belief and moral principles who loves Liberace, baseball cards, and his best friend's mom. Oh, yeah, and he talks like he's shouting out of his nose. Don't even get us started on what happens in the book. It's like your favorite sitcom exploded all over the lovechild of the Lifetime Movie of

the Week and a Televangelist special, resulting in a comic tragedy that's full of questions about God. What do I do with this? you ask. Well, sure, A Prayer for Owen Meany isn't always the most realistic novel you've ever read, but that doesn't mean that there aren't aspects of it that all of us can relate to. When you look past the crazy characters, bizarre events, and unbelievable coincidences, you end up with a really poignant and thoughtful look at the incredibly strong friendship between two boys in the process of growing up. Deep down, Owen and Johnny are like most of us: they may not be the coolest kids in school, but they have each other. They may face adversity, but they find strength in their friendship. They learn together, and they learn from each other. The constantly reflect on the things they've done and the things they can't control. They worry about the future. They worry about themselves. They worry about each other. Doesn't that sound kind of like your relationship with your best friend? Oh, and back to that "crazy characters, bizarre events, and unbelievable coincidences" thing – trust us, what happens in this book should be enough to get you hooked. Just saying. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Religion Did the religious overtones of A Prayer for Owen Meany seem to smack you over the head as you read it? Well, they ought to, considering that religion plays such a strong part in the novel. No sooner do you read the first paragraph than you find out that John, our narrator, is a Christian because of Owen Meany. We spend the rest of the novel figuring out why that's the case. Owen himself is presented as a Christlike figure (for more, see the "Symbols" section). Much of the novel centers on the struggle to find faith and to maintain it in light of trying circumstances. We get to know a lot about how religious belief is not fixed; it goes through all kinds of ups and downs. Some characters have it and will always have it; others don't have it at all. Some, like John, gain a sense of religious faith only after witnessing something truly miraculous. Questions About Religion 1. Why do you think it's important that Owen has so many criticisms to make about organized religion? 2. Why do you think Tabby lied to everyone about her motives for joining the Episcopal Church? 3. Compare and contrast Rev. Dudley Wiggin and Rev. Lewis Merrill. 4. How is John's attitude towards religion as an adult different from his attitude as a boy and as a young man?

Possible Thesis Statements: . Owen Meany is a Christ-like figure because he inherently possesses characteristics that make him seem like Christ. Owen Meany behaves in a Christ-like way because he wants to be seen as such.

A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Fate and Free Will

Is Owen's death destiny, or did he pave his own path? This is a question that we're still puzzling over. Owen seems to believe pretty strongly from the time he's a young boy that God has plans for him and that it's not his business to mess with them. On the other hand, other characters like John and Hester seem to be more of the mind that things happen because we will them to happen. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen's belief in fate and God's plans leads him to the army and to his ultimate death. Whether or not you think Owen's death is a product of fate or of choice is up to you. Either way, it's an interesting matter of debate. Questions About Fate and Free Will 1. How does Owen seem to change after he thinks he has a vision of the date of his death? 2. Do you think Owen was fated to die on the day that he died, or do you think he allowed himself to create the right circumstances for it to happen? 3. Do you think Tabby's death was an accident, or do you think it was fate? Why? 4. In your opinion, was Owen's decision to join the army a matter of fate or a matter of free will?

Possible Thesis Statements: . The events leading up to Owen Meany's death show us that he was destined to die on the day that he died. The events leading up to Owen Meany's death show us that there were many choices he could have made that could have helped him avoid his death. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Mortality We never really get away from a discussion of mortality in A Prayer for Owen Meany. We learn right away that Owen is responsible for Tabby's death. We witness the deaths of many other characters, including Lydia, Sagamore, Buzzy Thurston, Harry Hoyt, and Harriet. They live in a town called Gravesend, for crying out loud A Prayer for Owen Meany the word "grave" is in the back of our minds the whole time! Yet, the theme of mortality is perhaps most important and pronounced when we consider how Owen's life relates to death. He gets a sense pretty early on that his time on earth is limited; he's even convinced that he knows when he's going to die, and he's also sure that he will die for a cause. As a result, Owen's sense of mortality guides and shapes the way that he lives his life. Questions About Mortality 1. Whose death has a bigger impact on John: Tabby's or Owen's? Justify your choice. 2. Do you think that Tabby was supposed to die, or do you think it was a coincidence? 3. Which characters die peacefully in the novel? Can we view Tabby's death as being peaceful if it happened too quickly for her to know what happened? 4. Do you think Owen redeems himself for killing Tabby by saving all the kids? Why or why not?

Possible Thesis Statements: . A Prayer for Owen Meany shows us the ways in which death is unfair and beyond our control. A Prayer for Owen Meany shows us the ways in which death is a small part of the larger scheme of things. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Friendship Owen and John are quite a duo, aren't they? John seems so normal, and Owen seems so, well, strange, and yet they complement one another so well. Their friendship is central to A Prayer for Owen Meany. They are such good friends that they can both get over the fact that Owen is responsible for the death of John's mother. Of course, without their

friendship, we wouldn't have much of a story, but that seems to be beside the point. Owen and John are truly invested in one another. Owen helps John figure out his identity, and he also saves his life by keeping him out of Vietnam. John, likewise, plays a key role in helping Owen to fulfill his destiny. These two are there for each other through thick and thin. Questions About Friendship 1. Why do you think Owen and John are able to keep Tabby's death from harming their friendship? Would you be able to do the same thing if you were in John shoes? 2. We encounter a lot of other kids in the novel, but John and Owen don't seem to have any other friends besides one another. Why do you think that is the case? 3. Is John more protective of Owen, or is Owen more protective of John? Justify your answer. 4. How is the friendship between Lydia and Harriet similar to the relationship between Owen and John? How is it different?

Possible Thesis Statements: . Owen is in charge of his friendship with Johnny. Johnny and the Wheelwrights protect Owen. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Family In A Prayer for Owen Meany, family life tells us a lot about our characters (in fact, check out "Tools of Characterization: Family" for more). We learn a whole lot about the Wheelwrights and the Eastmans, who make up John's family. There's one big part of John's family life that is noticeably missing: he doesn't know who his dad is. Still, we see how friends and non-blood relatives can become more like family than the people to whom one is related. Dan Needham, John's stepdad, is the best dad a boy could ever ask for. Owen and John are so close that they could be brothers. In fact, we get the vibe that Owen is closer to the Wheelwrights than he is to his own family. Owen has a weird relationship with his parents that we don't really understand until the end of the novel. He comes and goes as he pleases, and they seem to not really care about what he does. Questions About Family 1. What examples of non-traditional fatherhood do we see in A Prayer for Owen Meany? 2. In what ways is Owen more a part of the Wheelwright family than the Meany family? Provide examples. 3. Why do you think Tabby never reveals the identity of Johnny's father to her own family? 4. Do you think Tabby ever intended to tell Johnny about who his father is? Why or why not?

Possible Thesis Statements: . In A Prayer for Owen Meany, bonds of friendship are just as important as bonds of family. A Prayer for Owen Meany demonstrates the ways in which families deceive each other to protect one another. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Memory and the Past John Wheelwright narrates A Prayer for Owen Meany from kind of a detached perspective: most of the events of the novel take place between 1952 and 1968, but John tells us the story from the present, which in his case is 1987. As a result, most of the novel is actually a collection of John's memories – in a sense, everything that happens has already happened. Of course, memory also plays an important role within the story he tells. Only a day before he dies, Owen asks John to play the "remember game," and they go over the highlights of their childhood together. John also depends on other people's memories to try to piece together his mother's secret life.

Questions About Memory and the Past 1. Why do you think Tabby comes up with such elaborate lies about the red dress, and why do you think she pretends not to remember the name of the store she bought it from? 2. How do memories sustain John as an adult? How do they harm him? 3. Why do you think Owen asks Johnny to play the "remember game" the day before he dies? Is it more for John's benefit or for Owen's benefit? 4. What are some reasons why it might be significant that Harriet starts to lose her memory toward the end of her life?

Possible Thesis Statements: . Memory is a source of strength and affirmation in tough times. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, memories are often painful and do more harm than good. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Society and Class One aspect of life in Gravesend that John illustrates for us is the difference between his background and Owen's background. Harriet Wheelwright, John's grandmother, pays particular attention to people's families in terms of who they are and where they come from. She can trace her roots back to the Mayflower, and her family was especially important in the founding of Gravesend. Owen's family, on the other hand, bounced around a lot and can't trace their roots back to anyone "important." Owen's family's class has a big effect on the opportunities available to him: he goes to Gravesend Academy on a scholarship and with Harriet's help. He enters the army because he can't pay for college otherwise. A Prayer for Owen Meany shows us really interesting things about how people's attitudes about society and class are shaped by who they are, where they come from, and what opportunities are available to them. Questions About Society and Class 1. What are some ways in which Owen triumphs over class boundaries? 2. How do we see tensions between social classes play out between the Episcopal Church and the Congregational Church? 3. What are some ways in which our characters lead lives that go against the norms of the social classes that they belong to? 4. Do you think John purposely makes himself an outcast in Toronto, or do you think that the society he lives in is generally unreceptive to people with strong opinions?

Possible Thesis Statements: . In A Prayer for Owen Meany, the subject of class comes up frequently so we can see how it is an arbitrary and insufficient way of assessing a person's true character. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, most characters adhere pretty closely to the roles that society carves out for them. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Identity One of the biggest questions we encounter in A Prayer for Owen Meany is this one: who is John's father? John has no idea, and for the most part, neither do we. In fact, almost all of the characters seem to express curiosity at one point or another as to whom Tabby slept with back in 1942. Yet, it's not just John's father whose identity is a secret. As John tries to unravel the mystery of his background, he starts to learn that his mother wasn't exactly the person he thought she was, either.

Questions About Identity 1. What clues do we get throughout the course of the novel that point to the identity of John's real father? 2. What are some ways in which characters' identities are tied to specific places? 3. Do you think Tabby ever intended to tell John the identity of his dad, or do you think she would have kept that identity a secret even when John was grown up? 4. What are some ways in which Harriet Wheelwright goes out of her way to maintain a very specific sense of identity? 5. How does Owen Meany see himself? How much of his identity is wrapped around being "God's Instrument"?

Possible Thesis Statements: . The characters in A Prayer for Owen Meany define their personal identities by highlighting the contrast between themselves and the people around them. The characters in A Prayer for Owen Meany define their personal identities through their backgrounds, homes, and histories A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Principles You've probably figured out by now that Owen has a lot of big ideas, and he is very firm in his beliefs in what is right and what is wrong. Even as a young boy, he tries to instruct others on how to do the right thing. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, we see him assert his principles the most directly, though, when he starts writing his column for The Grave under the pseudonym "The Voice." There is no issue too big or too small: he lets his views be known on topics ranging from school dance etiquette to President Kennedy to Catholicism to the food in the school cafeteria. Questions About Principles 1. What are some principles that John seems to adhere to in his daily life? 2. When Owen writes as The Voice, do you think that his opinions come from an already-established set of principles, or do you think he establishes some opinions merely as a way to contradict the school administration? Justify your choice. 3. What are some principles that Dan employs to guide Johnny's behavior? 4. How does Owen seem to use principles as a defense mechanism when he feels vulnerable? Possible Thesis Statements: In A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen seems to gain a set of principles as he goes along. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, a small set of firmly-established principles guides Owen's behavior throughout his life. A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme of Appearances

A Prayer for Owen Meany is full of characters who are made all the more memorable because we get such vivid pictures of what each of them looks like – regardless of how much or little time we spend with them. We can almost see Hester's strong jaw; we can easily picture Reverend Lewis Merrill's high forehead and widow's peak. It's also not hard to imagine the way Tabby looks in her wardrobe of black and white. More than anyone else, though, it's Owen who stands out. He's tiny – even as an adult, he doesn't clear five feet; he has a sharp-looking nose and big, "rubbery" ears that stick out. His veins are so prominent that his skin looks translucent. He's described as being rodent-like, but he also seems to be a child who looks like an old man. Why might it be significant that we pay so much attention to appearances in this novel? Well, for one thing, even though everyone in the novel seems to have some kind of defining physical characteristic, Owen still stands out to us. We learn more and more about the ways in which Owen seems to be "special" or "chosen," but even from the beginning we know that he's one of a kind, even just because of the way he looks.

Questions About Appearances 1. What seems inhuman about Owen's appearance? What seems human? 2. Why, in your opinion, do we never seem to get a good description of what John looks like? 3. Do you think there's a particular reason why Owen is so small? Why or why not? 4. Which characters appear to be unusual-looking, and which characters appear conventionally attractive? Is there a pattern?

Possible Thesis Statements: . In A Prayer for Owen Meany, characters who appear to be unusual-looking on the outside are the most beautiful on the inside. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, looks are not always correlated with personalities A Prayer for Owen Meany Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory Sometimes, there’s more to Lit than meets the eye. Jesus At times, the images that liken Owen to Jesus kind of hit us over the head. Maybe the most obvious instance that compares Owen to Jesus is the events that take place during Christmas of 1953. Owen convinces Rev. Wiggin and the other kids that he should play the part of Baby Jesus during the Christ Church Christmas pageant. We see him actually embody the Christ Child, wearing swaddling clothes and being surrounded by other kids playing shepherds, donkeys, the Virgin Mary, and Joseph. OK, so what? Well, when we think about his actions through the rest of the novel, Owen's role as the Little Lord Jesus kind of signals to us the extent to which Owen identifies with Jesus, even outside of the play. To begin, we see Owen's identity as a Christ figure play out through his relationship with his parents. Owen kind of rules the roost at home; it reminds us of the instances in the Bible where Jesus is this precocious kid teaching other adults about faith and God while his parents cheer him on from the background. Owen feels weird telling his parents that he's playing the part of Jesus, and he makes a huge stink about the fact that they show up to watch the play. At the moment, we find it kind of weird – after all, if you had a starring role in a play, wouldn't you want your parents to be there rooting for you? Only later do we find out that Owen's parents believe that he was a virgin birth, just like Jesus – that is to say, his mother got pregnant without ever having sex; it just happened. To Owen, the fact that they show up to watch him play Jesus in a play is just completely weird and distasteful – in fact, he thinks it's sacrilegious. We don't know whether or not we believe that his birth was miraculous, and it's OK if you aren't totally sure about it, either. Still, there's lots of food for thought there. The Christmas pageant and the supposed circumstances surrounding Owen's birth are definitely the most straightforward examples of Christ imagery in A Prayer for Owen Meany, but there are a lot of other ways in which Owen is portrayed as a Christ figure. Owen's professions of faith and interest in preaching to others resonate with Jesus' interest in spreading his teachings to others. Furthermore, Owen's relationship with God is strikingly Christ-like. When Tabby dies, for instance, Hester and John go to the gravesite at night and see Owen praying over her grave. When Owen hears them approaching, he shouts off into the night, asking God what he wants from him. It is as if Owen thinks that he is somehow chosen as God's messenger – just like Jesus. Owen's death is also a key indicator of the way that he figures into the novel as a Christ figure. Jesus knew ahead of time that he was going to die, and so does Owen. Owen knows the exact date of his death, and he knows that he is going to die to save a bunch of children. Likewise, Jesus knows that he's going to die and why: he believes that it is his mission in life to die to save God's children from their sins. It may seem like a stretch, and it also might seem a tad dramatic, but it is hard to deny that there are some pretty strong parallels between Jesus and Owen.

The Ghost of the Future For many people, Charles Dickens's novel A Christmas Carol and the various movie and TV productions that have been made over the years are as big a part of Christmas as Santa Claus and mistletoe. Likewise, A Christmas Carol is a huge part of the way that the Gravesend community celebrates Christmas, and the Gravesend Players' dramatic production of A Christmas Carol is a central episode in A Prayer for Owen Meany. In the novel, Owen gets to play the part of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. If you've ever read Dickens's novel or seen one of the many movie adaptations, you know that this ghost is the scariest one of them all. He is the one who shows Ebenezer Scrooge that he's going to die. Well, Owen's portrayal of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is the scariest one that the Gravesend community has ever seen; it's so scary, in fact, that Maureen Early pees her pants (peeing in one's pants, by the way, also seems to be a big trend in this novel – but we digress). Still, when John tells us about the play, he doesn't talk about Owen as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, which is the actual name of the character; he repeatedly refers to Owen as the Ghost of the Future (in fact, that's also the name of Chapter 5). What's up with that? Well, for one thing, we'd like to throw it out there that Owen's predictions for the future play a huge part, not only in how the novel progresses, but also in how Owen leads his life. During the final production of the play, Owen' doesn't just predict Ebenezer Scrooge's future; he also predicts his own when he sees his name and date of death on the gravestone prop. When John calls him the Ghost of the Future from then on, it doesn't seem that he's only referring to Owen's part in the play; he's also showing us how Owen seems to have an eerie foreknowledge of what is going to happen to him later. Owen's Voice One of the most noticeable characteristics about Owen is that he has this weird voice that, according to John, sounds like he's always shouting through his nose. It's not just the other characters in the novel who notice it; we notice it too – after all, every line spoken by Owen is WRITTEN IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, LIKE THIS. So why does Owen have a weird voice? Isn't it bad enough for him that he's so much shorter than everyone else and gets passed around like a doll? Isn't it tough enough for him that he has big, floppy ears and that you can see his veins through his skin? Why does he have to have a weird voice, too? We have a couple of thoughts on this front. To begin with, Owen's voice automatically sets him apart from other people. He's not just somebody that we remember; he sticks out to others, too. There are plenty of other short, funny-looking people in the world, but not just anyone has a voice like Owen's. In fact, Owen's voice makes him so memorable that even when Harriet loses her mind and can't remember anyone else in her own family, she remembers Owen solely because of the way he talked. Why is it important for Owen to have characteristics that make him so unique? Well, if we accept Owen's view that he's "chosen" and that he's "God's Instrument," it goes without saying that he should somehow be one of a kind, right? Beyond that, let's not forget that, at the end of the novel, Owen realizes that his voice is a key tool for helping the orphans to calm down when Dick Jarvits comes barging in with a grenade. Since Owen's voice is strangely childlike, the orphans calm down immediately and heed his instructions. For Owen, this is a real lightbulb moment; all of a sudden, he's got a very concrete reason to explain why his voice never changes: he needs it as part of his effort to save the orphans. Interestingly, this view also helps to solidify Owen's sense that what happens to him is destiny rather than coincidence. Owen's lifelong characteristic of having a weird voice ultimately seems meant to be, and it further justifies the idea that his fate is meant to be, too. Armless Figures: The Dressmaker's Dummy, The Armadillo, and Mary Magdalene Isn't it kind of weird how there are all of these objects in A Prayer for Owen Meany that are supposed to have arms, but either don't have them to begin with or lose them for strange and seemingly unexplained reasons? Isn't it even weirder

that Owen seems to be so fascinated with armless figures throughout his entire life? Let's take a look at some of these objects and try to make sense of what they're doing here. There's Tabby's dressmakers dummy, which doesn't even have arms to begin with. In terms of its height, size, and figure, it's a nearly perfect copy of Tabby's body. Owen and John make a fun game of dressing it up in Tabby's clothes, but Owen seems to go beyond seeing it as a mere plaything. Instead, he seems to be kind of obsessed with it. After Tabby dies, Owen takes the dummy out of Dan's apartment and keeps it in his own bedroom. What's the big deal? Well, let's think about the role that the dummy has had in Owen's life outside of playing dress-up. One night, when Owen's sleeping over John's house, he feels sick and goes into Tabby's room to tell her so. He sees the dummy and is convinced that it is the Angel of Death. He's pretty sure that he interrupted the Angel of Death at work, and so he doesn't feel all that guilty later on when he kills Tabby. He thinks that it was his destiny to hasten her death because he prevented the Angel of Death from taking her when she was supposed to die. Then there's the armadillo. Unlike the dressmaker's dummy, the armadillo actually does have arms – well, legs and claws, at least – when John receives it from Dan as a gift. After Owen kills Tabby, however, John gives Owen the armadillo as a way of showing him that he still loves him, and when Owen returns the armadillo, it has no claws. Huh?! We will later learn that Owen is trying to show John how God has made Owen his instrument and has taken his hands in order to accomplish things that are destined to happen. After all of that, there's still the statue of Mary Magdalene to consider. After he's expelled from Gravesend Academy, Owen steals the statue of Mary Magdalene from St. Michael's Church and welds it to the stage of the Great Hall at Gravesend Academy. In this case, Owen doesn't just remove the statue's arms; he takes off its head, too. There are a lot of ways to interpret this gesture. One possible explanation is that Owen is just trying to stick it to Randy White for throwing him out of school. Another might be that he wants it to appear like a miracle has happened at Gravesend Academy. Still, one hunch that we can't shake about Owen's fascination with Mary Magdalene is how much Mary Magdalene seems to stand in as a figure for Tabby. In the Bible, Mary Magdalene is a disciple of Jesus. Rumor has it that she's a prostitute, albeit one who has repented. She doesn't seem to be too unlike Tabby in the sense that everyone seems to know that she is a "loose" woman but still sees her as being a sweet and good person. The likening of Tabby to Mary Magdalene may explain why Owen saws off her head in addition to her arms – after all, he killed Tabby by hitting her in the head with a baseball. OK, so we have a lot of armless images in this novel – so what do they add up to? Well, let's think about how Owen dies – a grenade explodes his arms off. In one sense, then, all of these different armless images help to foreshadow the way that Owen will meet his maker. He loses his arms and bleeds to death. Still, they don't seem to just foreshadow Owen's fate; they also show how everything that happens to him is intertwined in some way that makes us believe that his death is scripted and inevitable. We start to understand why Owen thinks he's God's instrument, because all of these images culminate in his final act. In the same vein, armless-ness is also an image of powerlessness. The images of figures without arms emphasize Owen's belief that he doesn't have control over everything that happens; some bigger force is in charge of putting all of the pieces into place. A Prayer for Owen Meany Setting Gravesend, New Hampshire, 1952-1968; Toronto, Canada, 1987

A Prayer for Owen Meany takes place in two distinct periods of John Wheelwright's life. These two periods are interwoven together, meaning that we constantly move back and forth in time. The first setting is the town of Gravesend, New Hampshire. Most of the scenes of John and Owen's childhood and adolescent years take place there. Gravesend is a

fictional town that is based on the real town of Exeter, New Hampshire. Likewise, Gravesend Academy, the prep school that John and Owen attend, is based on the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. In a lot of ways, Gravesend seems like kind of an ideal town to grow up in; the community seems fairly tight-knit (we mean, when was the last time your whole town got together to put on a production of A Christmas Carol?), it's not too far from the beach, and kids ride bikes and play baseball and engage in good old-fashioned shenanigans. Still, Gravesend isn't entirely perfect; we get the vibe that there's some classism going on behind the scenes. We have fancy, Mayflower-stock Yankees like Harriet Wheelwright, who care all about pedigree, class, and Harvard degrees. Then we have working-class folk like the Meanys. The tension between the "haves" and "have-nots" in Gravesend becomes particularly easy to spot when we look at the scenes in which Tabby tries to convince Owen to apply to Gravesend Academy. Owen identifies with the public school; he figures that it's the right place for people "like him." Even if he gets a scholarship, he argues, he won't fit in because he doesn't have the look (he doesn't have the fancy clothes). Even though Owen ends up attending the Academy, we're still left thinking about what happens to kids who aren't as lucky or smart as Owen. It's also worth mentioning that John and Owen grow up during a period of immense cultural change and political turmoil. The world around them becomes far less idealistic and a whole lot meaner as they grow to be young men. In the 1950s, everything seems to be all peachy and innocent. Then the 1960s come, and things start to shift radically. Marilyn Monroe dies. President Kennedy is assassinated. Bobby Kennedy is assassinated. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated. The war in Vietnam escalates dramatically. Their friends and peers get drafted into the army; some, like Harry Hoyt, die in Vietnam (though, it is worth mentioning, he dies from a snakebite and not from combat). Others, like Buzzy Thurston, become addicted to drugs and alcohol. In a way, the world that the boys knew so well becomes unrecognizable. These changes bring us to the other major setting that we encounter in the novel: Toronto, Canada in 1987. John moved there in 1967. We initially get the hunch that, like many other young men of the Vietnam era, John moved there to escape the draft. We quickly learn that this isn't so – actually, John evaded the draft by letting Owen chop off his trigger finger. He didn't have to move to Canada – so why is he there now? Well, we find out throughout the novel that John is pretty disgusted with American politics. He is extremely critical of the current administration (FYI – Ronald Reagan was the president then). He feels like American politicians mishandle practically everything in their wake. While we see John seethe with anti-Americanism throughout the whole novel, though, it isn't until the end that we realize it was actually one of Owen's last wishes that John should high-tail it out of the US and go to the land of maple leaves. A Prayer for Owen Meany Narrator: Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him? First Person (Limited) Our narrator, John Wheelwright, is an unbelievably nice guy, but when it comes down to his narration, he is also kind of tricky. What's interesting about the way he narrates the novel is that he creates a story within a story. It doesn't seem immediately like he's setting out to tell a story specifically about Owen. Rather, John's narration is kind of a classic baitand-switch: we think that John is telling us his life story. We mean, he sort of does. We learn all about his family history, his thoughts on politics and religion, his (nonexistent) sex life, and, most importantly, his relationship with Owen Meany. It is through all of John's musings about his own life, though, that he tells us the story at the core of the novel: Owen's story. We never get into Owen's head – hence John's narration is from a limited first-person perspective – but we sort of piece together Owen's life story through a series of flashbacks, diary entries, remembered conversations, and so forth. When you think about it, John is the perfect guy to tell Owen's story; nobody in the world is as close to Owen as he is or has spent as much time with him. Since they're the exact same age, John (or Johnny, as a kid) understands what Owen experiences because he experiences it too. One sort of curious aspect of the narrative style of A Prayer for Owen Meany

is the way that John moves back and forth in time. Throughout the novel, John tells the story as a 45-year-old man in Toronto, Canada. When we're in 1987, everything seems a little bit removed. Yet, we constantly move back and forth in time, zooming into particular moments in the past and then zooming back out into the "present" (the awesome, hightops-wearing, neon-colored, crimped-hair present). What effect does this have on the story? Well, for one thing, this isn't the kind of novel in which stuff unexpectedly happens to the narrator, causing him to react in the present moment. We don't meet Johnny as a ten-year-old and then follow a linear timeline. Instead, even when we turn the first page, John already knows everything that happens – he knows Owen's complete story, from beginning to end. In fact, we get the sense that he has to be the one who tells the story, because Owen doesn't know what happens after he dies. John acts as a kind of filter for Owen's experiences, and along the way, we don't just learn a ton about Owen – we could probably write a whole book on John, too. A Prayer for Owen Meany Genre Coming of Age, Quest On one hand, A Prayer for Owen Meany is a classic coming-of-age story, albeit with more than a few unique quirks and twists. The whole novel is narrated by John as an older man, reflecting upon the period of his life from early adolescence to early adulthood. Like so many other coming-of-age novels, we follow two friends – John and Owen – as they lose their innocence and start to understand the world in new and complicated ways. We see them develop from children to young men, and we witness the ways in which their perceptions of the world take shape. Still, there's a lot more going on in this novel than the transition from childhood to adulthood. The novel moves along a very specific path, and this path is pretty much determined by Owen Meany's sense of mission and purpose. Owen is convinced that he is "God's Instrument," starting when he "accidentally" kills John's mother by hitting a foul ball that subsequently hits her in the head (we say "accidentally" in quotation marks because Owen, as you probably noticed, doesn't believe in accidents – everything, according to him, is meant to be the way it is). Owen knows that he has some specific duty to fulfill in his life, but he doesn't know exactly what it is – he only knows that he has a purpose. The novel takes us along on Owen's journey to figure out exactly how a bunch of disparate events in his life combine in order to create the one big moment through which he will fulfill his destiny. A Prayer for Owen Meany Tone Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful? Highly Personal; Poignant yet Comical One thing you'll notice immediately is that our narrator, John, makes himself vulnerable to us from the get-go. Even before we know what his name is, we know some pretty big details about his life: he lost his mother at a young age, and the boy responsible for her death was his best friend, Owen Meany. We also learn that it was because of Owen Meany that John has some pretty deep religious convictions. That highly-personal tone runs throughout the entire novel. (He's even willing to admit to us that he used to have a crush on his own cousin, for crying out loud.) The other notable aspect of the novel's tone is that it manages to tug at our heartstrings while also making us giggle. It can be really hard to find humor in situations like the ones our characters find themselves in, and yet you'll probably find yourself giggling pretty frequently at all of the situational humor the novel has to offeA Prayer for Owen Meany Writing Style Dickensian Our main man John Irving is a big fan of Charles Dickens (and heck, once you pick up a copy of Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, or David Copperfield you will be, too). We see Irving give Dickens some props by having the

Gravesend Players put on a yearly production of Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Still, that's not the only way that Irving gives a wink and a nod to Señor Dickens. The style of the novel itself can be described as Dickensian. Charles Dickens's novels have a few trademark qualities. First of all, we'll come out and say the obvious: Dickens' novels are pretty darn long, and so is A Prayer for Owen Meany. Like Dickens' novels, Owen Meany is a sprawling, complicated, detail-heavy story. Owen Meany is also a prime example of one of Dickens' other trademarks: the novel has a cast of memorable characters, often with funny-sounding names – even the minor characters are hard to forget. Who can forget Rev. Dudley Wiggin, Buzzy Thurston or "Hester the Molester"? We don't just remember them because of their names, though; we remember them because Irving spends the time to create vivid portraits of each of them. Dickens's work is also often a tad on the sentimental side, but simultaneously provides strong social commentary. Likewise, A Prayer for Owen Meany is alternately comic and heartbreaking, and it also investigates some of the biggest social and political concerns that faced the Baby Boom generation. What’s Up With the Title? You'll find pretty quickly that the topic of prayer is a huge one in this novel. A Prayer for Owen Meany is all about figuring out one's personal faith. It's also about one man's sacrifice of himself in order to serve a bigger purpose. Owen is convinced that God has chosen him to fulfill a particular destiny, and, in spite of his strong faith, this scares him. When Owen is certain of what his fate will be, he asks Rev. Merrill to say a prayer for him in front of all of the students at Gravesend Academy. OK, so the book contains prayers for Owen Meany – so, what else? Well, we can look at the whole novel, narrated by John, as one big extended prayer on Owen's behalf. On one hand, prayer, according to Owen, doesn't have to entail asking for something; it can be as simple as talking to God directly in order to try to make sense of a difficult situation. If we look at it this way, then we can see the ways in which John uses his role as the narrator as a way of talking through his memories and making sense of what happened to Owen. On the other hand, the book itself ends with a prayer: John asks God to give Owen back. Thus, in one way we can see the novel as an extended prayer on Owen's behalf; in another way, we can see it as John's prayer for his own interests – he wants his friend back. What’s Up With the Epigraph? Epigraphs are like little appetizers to the great entrée of a story. They illuminate important aspects of the story, and they get us headed in the right direction.

"Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." –The Letter of Paul to the Philippians Our first epigraph helps to guide the way that we think about Owen and his relationship to his faith. It's pretty obvious before you even pick up the book that there's a relationship between Owen and faith – we mean, the title itself suggests that the book itself is a prayer for this kid. This particular quote, though, pushes us to focus about the way that prayer conquers anxiety. Basically, it says, "Don't worry – trust in God. Talk to Him. It'll be OK." Isn't that what Owen is always doing? He has a strong belief that things are meant to be the way they turn out. He views prayer as a way of communicating directly with God – not necessarily as a way of asking God for what he wants, but more as a way of working through what he knows will inevitably happen. Now on to the second epigraph:

"Not the least of my problems is that I can hardly even imagine what kind of an experience a genuine, self-authenticating religious experience would be. Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me." –Frederick Buechner

Religious conviction and religious doubt constantly come to blows in this novel. When we meet John as an adult, for example, he seems to be full of certainty about the nature of God and Christianity. Yet, as a young man, he is full of doubt – he'd probably go so far to say that he didn't really have any strong religious beliefs to begin with. As we see throughout the novel, this is not an unusual feeling. Even Rev. Merrill, who is a self-proclaimed man of God, is plagued by religious doubt after Tabby is killed. He encourages his parishioners to experience and think about their doubts. Some might even argue that it's better to have some doubts about faith than firm conviction – it means you're really thinking about it instead of just blindly believing, so that when you do come to a conclusion about what you believe, you can be certain that it's best for you. Moving on to the third epigraph…

"Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig." –Leon Bloy We like this one – it's brief and to the point. There's nothing flowery about this epigraph. Basically, it tells us that a good Christian should be a hero. So, how does this figure into the novel and frame the way we read it? Well, we're going to put it right out there and say that Owen is the most Christian character we encounter in this novel. He is completely firm in his beliefs. When he has the opportunity to go to Vietnam and become a hero, he doesn't regard it as a choice – he sees it as his duty. In fact, we could easily take away the name "Leon Bloy" from this quotation and attribute it to Owen Meany. Owen lives his life in pursuit of his destiny, and he is thrilled to believe that he is fated to be a hero. He feels that if he doesn't become a hero, he'll be going against what God wants him to do. What’s Up With the Ending? We don't know about you, but when we were reading A Prayer for Owen Meany, we couldn't believe how much attention John, our narrator, pays to every single little detail. We also puzzled over why some events or activities received so much attention. Why, for instance, does John spend so much time describing how he and Owen practice "The Shot"? (In case you forgot, "The Shot" refers to the way that John assists Owen in making a slam-dunk in basketball by hoisting him up in the air.) Why does John spend the better part of two pages talking about the layout of the airport bathroom? What is it with Owen and nuns – why does he find them so terrifying? Why is Owen so preoccupied with representations of people and animals that don't have arms? We never cease to think of other things that puzzle us. The end of the novel takes all of these seemingly unrelated details and events and ties them into a pretty neat little bundle. John hasn't been rambling about just any old thing that popped into his head all this time; he was building up to Owen's big moment. The end of the novel plunks us in sunny, hot Phoenix, Arizona. Owen is in the army, and one of his big duties is to escort the bodies of dead soldiers back to their families. He asks John to come meet him in Arizona, telling him that they can have a nice, relaxing vacation together. Of course, this isn't the whole story. Owen believes that he's supposed to die on July 8, 1968, and he is almost certain, based on the dreams he's been having, that John has to be there. When it all goes down and Dick Jarvits throws a grenade at the boys in the airport bathroom, we start understanding the images that have been confronting us this whole time. Owen and John use The Shot to get the grenade away from the kids. All of the images of armless creatures and people have foreshadowed that Owen will have his arms blown off. The nuns are there to comfort him in his last hours. Every little thing that has puzzled Owen or has made him nervous factors into the scene of his death in some meaningful way.

A Prayer for Owen Meany Questions Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer. 1. Why do you think John Irving chose to end the novel in Arizona instead of Vietnam? What does this setting tell us about Owen's ability to foresee what will happen to him? 2. What is the effect when we learn that John remains a virgin for his whole life? Do you think it has some sort of religious significance? Is it psychological? What do you make of it? 3. What aspects of the novel did you find believable? Which left you thinking, "Huh? No way!"? 4. Who do you think is the real focus of the novel, John or Owen? 5. Would you be able to forgive Owen for what happens at the baseball game if you were John? Why might it be important that John forgives Owen?

Individual assignments will be distributed every other week from the beginning of the semester to the end. Refer to your calendar for due dates. Questions from the novel will be on the mid-term exam or final depending on when your particular class completes the project. Read conscientiously.