The World According to Garp
Encyclopedia
The World According to Garp is John Irving's
fourth novel. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for several years.
A movie adaptation
of the novel starring Robin Williams
was released in 1982, with a screenplay written by Steve Tesich
.
gunner known only as Technical Sergeant
Garp who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. As a matter of practicality and kindness in making his passing as comfortable as possible and reducing his agitation, she manually gratifies him several times. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him "T. S." (standing only for "Technical Sergeant"). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position at an all-boys school.
Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. He launches his writing career, courts and marries the wrestling coach's daughter, and fathers three children. Meanwhile, his mother suddenly becomes a feminist
icon after publishing a best-selling autobiography called A Sexual Suspect (referring to the general assessment of her as a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own).
Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children and a desire to keep them safe from the dangers of the world. He and his family inevitably experience dark and violent events through which the characters change and grow. Garp learns (often painfully) from the women in his life (including transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon) struggling to become more tolerant in the face of intolerance. The story is decidedly rich with (in the words of the fictional Garp's teacher) "lunacy and sorrow," and the sometimes ridiculous chains of events the characters experience still resonate with painful truth.
The novel contains several framed narratives: Garp's first novella, The Pension Grillparzer; a short story; and a portion of one of his novels, The World According to Bensenhaver. As well, the book contains some motifs that appear in almost all John Irving
novels: bears, wrestling, Vienna, New England, people who are uninterested in having sex, and a complex Dickensian plot that spans the protagonist's whole life. Adultery (another common Irving motif) also plays a large part, culminating in one of the novel's most harrowing and memorable scenes. There is also a tincture
of another familiar Irving trope, castration anxiety
, most obvious in the lamentable fate of Michael Milton.
In 1981, Time magazine quoted the novelist's mother as saying, "There are parts of Garp that are too explicit for me."
The original title of the novel was "Lunacy and Sorrow".
sian sense, Garp's art imitates life, and vice-versa, and his writing drives home the absurdity of a fear of death, as well as the absurdity of death itself.
movement, and, rejecting almost any interaction with men, is the focus of Irving's feminist overtones. Driven home by her adoption of radical feminists and her absurd New England feminist enclave at Dog's Head Harbor, Irving paints a complicated view of the women's movement. Indeed, Irving oscillates a decidedly unsympathetic view of the overzealous Ellen Jamesians, while vesting in the character of Roberta Muldoon a sanguine portrayal of a transsexual—one who ends up becoming Garp's best friend. Garp's relationship to the feminist movement is also muddled. Garp becomes a reluctant representative of the movement with his third—and most widely read—novel. At the same time, however, he is rejected outright by many feminists and Ellen Jamesians for his work's misogynistic tone.
), and especially by his depiction of Garp's wife, Helen, who also has illicit sexual liaisons. Indeed, undoubtedly the most horrifying event in the novel occurs during a scene in which Garp's son is killed because Helen, while attempting to break off her affair with one of her students, agrees to fellatio as a sort of going-away present.
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
fourth novel. Published in 1978, the book was a bestseller for several years.
A movie adaptation
The World According to Garp (film)
The World According to Garp is 1982 American comedy drama film directed by George Roy Hill, based on the novel of the same title by John Irving, who also wrote the script together with Steve Tesich...
of the novel starring Robin Williams
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
was released in 1982, with a screenplay written by Steve Tesich
Steve Tesich
Stojan Steve Tesich was a Serbian-American screenwriter, playwright and novelist. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1979 for the movie Breaking Away.-Career:...
.
Plot
The story deals with the life of T. S. Garp. His mother, Jenny Fields, is a strong-willed nurse who wants a child but not a husband. She encounters a dying ball turretBall turret
A ball turret was a particular form of spherical-form, altazimuth mount movement manned aircraft gun turret, accommodating the gunner with nearly all the needed equipment for defensive firepower mounted either within or onto the spherical shell of the turret structure, mounted on aircraft during...
gunner known only as Technical Sergeant
Technical Sergeant
Technical Sergeant is the name of one current and two former enlisted ranks in the United States military.-United States Air Force:Technical Sergeant, or Tech Sergeant, is the sixth enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force, just above Staff Sergeant and below Master Sergeant. A technical sergeant is...
Garp who was severely brain damaged in combat. Jenny nurses Garp, observing his infantile state and almost perpetual autonomic sexual arousal. As a matter of practicality and kindness in making his passing as comfortable as possible and reducing his agitation, she manually gratifies him several times. Unconstrained by convention and driven by practicality and her desire for a child, Jenny uses Garp's sexual response to impregnate herself, and names the resultant son after him "T. S." (standing only for "Technical Sergeant"). Jenny raises young Garp alone, taking a position at an all-boys school.
Garp grows up, becoming interested in sex, wrestling, and writing fiction—three topics in which his mother has little interest. He launches his writing career, courts and marries the wrestling coach's daughter, and fathers three children. Meanwhile, his mother suddenly becomes a feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
icon after publishing a best-selling autobiography called A Sexual Suspect (referring to the general assessment of her as a woman who does not care to bind herself to a man, and who chooses to raise a child on her own).
Garp becomes a devoted parent, wrestling with anxiety for the safety of his children and a desire to keep them safe from the dangers of the world. He and his family inevitably experience dark and violent events through which the characters change and grow. Garp learns (often painfully) from the women in his life (including transsexual ex-football player Roberta Muldoon) struggling to become more tolerant in the face of intolerance. The story is decidedly rich with (in the words of the fictional Garp's teacher) "lunacy and sorrow," and the sometimes ridiculous chains of events the characters experience still resonate with painful truth.
The novel contains several framed narratives: Garp's first novella, The Pension Grillparzer; a short story; and a portion of one of his novels, The World According to Bensenhaver. As well, the book contains some motifs that appear in almost all John Irving
John Irving
John Winslow Irving is an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of The World According to Garp in 1978...
novels: bears, wrestling, Vienna, New England, people who are uninterested in having sex, and a complex Dickensian plot that spans the protagonist's whole life. Adultery (another common Irving motif) also plays a large part, culminating in one of the novel's most harrowing and memorable scenes. There is also a tincture
Tincture
A tincture is an alcoholic extract or solution of a non-volatile substance . To qualify as a tincture, the alcoholic extract is to have an ethanol percentage of at least 40-60%...
of another familiar Irving trope, castration anxiety
Castration anxiety
Castration anxiety is the fear of emasculation in both the literal and metaphorical sense.-Literal:Castration anxiety is the conscious or unconscious fear of losing all or part of the sex organs, or the function of such....
, most obvious in the lamentable fate of Michael Milton.
Background
John Irving's mother, Frances Winslow, had not been married at the time of his conception, and Irving never met his biological father. As a child, he was not even told anything about his father, and he baited his mother that unless she gave him some information about his biological father, in his writing he would invent the father and the circumstances of how she got pregnant. Winslow would reply, "Go ahead, dear." When The World According to Garp was written, with the protagonist's biological father a comatose but aroused Second World War veteran, Irving was unaware that his own biological father had been in the military.In 1981, Time magazine quoted the novelist's mother as saying, "There are parts of Garp that are too explicit for me."
The original title of the novel was "Lunacy and Sorrow".
Cultural references
- Garp's school is based on the Phillips Exeter AcademyPhillips Exeter AcademyPhillips Exeter Academy is a private secondary school located in Exeter, New Hampshire, in the United States.Exeter is noted for its application of Harkness education, a system based on a conference format of teacher and student interaction, similar to the Socratic method of learning through asking...
in Exeter, New HampshireExeter, New HampshireExeter is a town in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, United States. The town's population was 14,306 at the 2010 census. Exeter was the county seat until 1997, when county offices were moved to neighboring Brentwood...
, of which Irving is an alumnus. His stepfather was a faculty member. - T.S. Garp's writing career resembles John Irving's own early career. Garp's first novel is about freeing animals from the Vienna Zoo, similar to Setting Free the BearsSetting Free the BearsSetting Free the Bears is the first novel by American author John Irving, published in 1968 by Random House.Irving studied at the Institute of European Studies in Vienna in 1963 and Bears was written between 1965 and 1967 based largely on Irving’s understanding of the city and its rebellious youth...
. Garp's second novel is about wife-swappingSwingingSwinging or partner swapping is a non-monogamous behavior, in which both partners in a committed relationship agree, as a couple, for both partners to engage in sexual activities with other couples as a recreational or social activity...
, similar to The 158-Pound MarriageThe 158-Pound MarriageJohn Irving's third and perhaps darkest novel, The 158-Pound Marriage examines the sexual revolution-era trend of 'swinging' via a glimpse into the lives of two couples in a small New England college town who enter casually into such an affair, with disastrous consequences.-Plot summary:The...
, with some similarities to The Water-Method ManThe Water-Method ManThe Water Method Man is the second published novel by American novelist John Irving . A little-known fact about this novel is that Irving, for a time, considered making the "Old Low Norse" poem, "Akthelt and Gunnel", into his actual second novel. It was going to be called, "Love Among the Greths"...
. Garp's third novel is called The World According to Bensenhaver, the novel's protagonist, and is about "lust" (according to Jenny). Coincidentally, Garp's third novel is a best-seller, like The World According to Garp itself. However, Garp (presumably speaking for Irving) ridicules the idea that his third novel is autobiographical. - Ellen James SocietyEllen James SocietyEllen James Society was a rock band, based in Atlanta, that was fronted by Cooper Seay and Chris McGuire. Gary Held, Jan Dykes, Scott Bland, and Bryan Lilje were also members at various times...
, a rock band from Atlanta, took their name from a women's group in the novel.
Death
Irving concludes the novel by stating, "In the world according to Garp, we are all terminal cases." Indeed, throughout the book, Garp seems to be obsessed with death, both in his writing and in his personal life. Garp remarks in a reading that his novella, The Pension Grillparzer, features the death of seven of his nine characters. His third novel, The World According to Bensenhaver, features multiple scenes of death and mutilation. However, Garp's writing merely reflects the broader nature of his obsession with necrosis. Garp irrationally fantasizes about ways his loved ones might die. At one point, Garp rants about his hatred of late-night phone calls—which undoubtedly bring news of a loved one's death. Ironically, several of the people closest to him do die—often in outlandish, even comical ways. In a WildeOscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
sian sense, Garp's art imitates life, and vice-versa, and his writing drives home the absurdity of a fear of death, as well as the absurdity of death itself.
Gender roles
Unavoidable in The World According to Garp and in Garp's own writing itself is the treatment of extreme feminism. Garp's mother Jenny Fields finds herself amidst elements of the women's rightsWomen's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
movement, and, rejecting almost any interaction with men, is the focus of Irving's feminist overtones. Driven home by her adoption of radical feminists and her absurd New England feminist enclave at Dog's Head Harbor, Irving paints a complicated view of the women's movement. Indeed, Irving oscillates a decidedly unsympathetic view of the overzealous Ellen Jamesians, while vesting in the character of Roberta Muldoon a sanguine portrayal of a transsexual—one who ends up becoming Garp's best friend. Garp's relationship to the feminist movement is also muddled. Garp becomes a reluctant representative of the movement with his third—and most widely read—novel. At the same time, however, he is rejected outright by many feminists and Ellen Jamesians for his work's misogynistic tone.
Sexuality
Garp's world is one where sexuality—replaced in the book with the nomenclature "lust"—is basically a source of trouble and heartache. Garp's earliest feelings of lust, namely those for a girl, Cushie, result in what are ultimately negative feelings for Garp. Garp's second encounter with lust is with an Austrian prostitute, a relationship his mother used as material for national rebuke in her successful autobiography, A Sexual Suspect. In fact, the only character Irving creates without any symptoms of lust is Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, an asexual nurse whose repulsion from sex is highlighted by her conception of Garp himself. As a result, Garp's mother appears as one of the few steady, morally justified characters in the novel, in spite of her having committed rape. Although she does have non-consensual sex with the sergeant, that seems to be the only time when Jenny engages in sexual activity. Irving also disorients Garp's sexual moral compass by having him engage in numerous lurid affairs, by presenting Garp's marriage through an odd sexual quadrangle with another married couple (a similar quadrangle was the primary focus of Irving's previous novel, The 158-Pound MarriageThe 158-Pound Marriage
John Irving's third and perhaps darkest novel, The 158-Pound Marriage examines the sexual revolution-era trend of 'swinging' via a glimpse into the lives of two couples in a small New England college town who enter casually into such an affair, with disastrous consequences.-Plot summary:The...
), and especially by his depiction of Garp's wife, Helen, who also has illicit sexual liaisons. Indeed, undoubtedly the most horrifying event in the novel occurs during a scene in which Garp's son is killed because Helen, while attempting to break off her affair with one of her students, agrees to fellatio as a sort of going-away present.
External links
- John Irving discusses The World According to Garp on the BBC World Book ClubWorld Book ClubWorld Book Club is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her books, often the most well-known one, with the public...
- The World According to Garp: Reading Group Guides
- Photos of the first edition of The World According to Garp