The World According to Garp by John Irving
"The World According to Garp," a novel by John Irving, centers on the life of Jenny Fields, a fiercely independent woman who becomes a single mother after a brief encounter with a soldier during World War II. Jenny, who is determined to raise her son Garp without the influence of sexual relationships, becomes a successful nurse and later an acclaimed author. As Garp grows up, he navigates his own complex relationships, particularly with Helen Holm, whom he marries, and their two sons, Duncan and Walt. The narrative intertwines themes of feminism, sexuality, and the challenges of parenthood, highlighting Garp's struggle to balance his literary ambitions with his obligations as a husband and father.
The story further explores societal issues through Jenny's controversial activism surrounding women's rights and the impact of violence against women. As Garp's career develops, he grapples with the legacy of his mother’s feminist fame and the moral dilemmas posed by his own writing. The novel culminates in tragedy, revealing the dangers faced by both Garp and Jenny as they confront extremist views and personal loss. Through its rich character development and poignant commentary on gender and identity, "The World According to Garp" offers a multifaceted exploration of life, love, and the pursuit of meaning in a complex world.
The World According to Garp by John Irving
First published: 1978
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Tragicomedy
Time of plot: Mid-twentieth century
Locale: New Hampshire and Massachusetts
Principal characters
T. S. Garp , a wrestling coach and an aspiring writerJenny Fields , his motherHelen Holm Garp , his wife, an English professorDuncan , ,Walt , andJenny , their childrenCushman Percy , Garp’s childhood friendBainbridge Percy , her sisterMichael Milton , Helen’s loverEllen James , a young woman, raped and maimed as a child
The Story
Jenny Fields is the only daughter of a New England shoe manufacturer and lives in her family’s enormous house in Dog’s Head Harbor, New Hampshire. After a few years, Jenny leaves the expensive private school her parents had selected for her and instead enrolls in nursing school. Attractive and self-assured, she has definite opinions about lust and sex; she is opposed to lust and abstains from sex. She is young, attractive, and self-assured, so friends and family assume she is sexually active.
Jenny had never had sex until one night at work at a hospital during World War II. She had decided to have sex for the sole purpose of procreation; she wanted a child. In the hospital where she works, many badly wounded soldiers are in recovery, or dying. Jenny sorts the soldiers into categories, including The Goners, those who are most severely injured. One night, Jenny sexually arouses one of the Goners, a soldier identified only as Technical Sergeant, or T. S., Garp, who had been horribly wounded while serving as a gunner on a warplane.
As planned, Jenny became pregnant with the soldier’s child—Garp, however, died. The baby was given the last name Garp, but because the boy had to have a first name as well, he was given the initials T and S, which officially stood for nothing; only Jenny knew the initials stood for “technical sergeant.” She never knew the soldier’s first name.
Jenny loved being a nurse. To simplify her life and solidify her identity, she wore her nurse’s uniform at all times. She took a job at Steering School, an all-boy’s preparatory school near her parents’ home. She could work as a nurse every day and provide for her young son a quality education. A lover of books, she remained committed to the rejection of lust and sex and became a curious but respected member of the Steering School community.
The Steering family, who resides in the nicest, biggest house on campus, is represented by Midge Steering Percy; her fat husband, Stewart; their three sons and two daughters; and a large, mean Newfoundland dog named Bonkers. As young Garp grows up at Steering School, he plays with the Percy children. One fateful day, Garp is viciously attacked by Bonkers, who bites off Garp’s left earlobe. The Percy sons do not play much of a role in Garp’s life, but the daughters, Cushman, or Cushie, and Bainbridge, or Pooh, are important to him. With Cushie, Garp has his first sexual experience, in the infirmary annex at Steering School.
Jenny decides that Garp should participate in a sport. After some investigation, she decides on wrestling. The wrestling coach, an Iowa native named Ernie Holm, has a bespectacled bookworm of a daughter named Helen. Helen loves to read, perhaps even more so than Jenny. Garp falls in love with both wrestling and the wrestling coach’s daughter. Garp’s other passions are running and writing. He writes poetry and stories and dreams of someday being a successful author. He believes that most successful authors had either lived in or traveled extensively in Europe. His English teacher, Mr. Tinch, who stutters, had once spent time in Vienna. He recommends the city to Jenny and her aspiring writer son.
It is in Vienna that Jenny is bitten by the writing bug, and she begins penning her autobiography, to be called A Sexual Suspect. This work, which had been envisioned as a true account of Jenny’s views and opinions on gender and sex, is mistakenly received as a feminist masterpiece, a life-transforming book for a generation of women. Jenny becomes rich and famous overnight.
Garp’s first work of literary merit, a story, is inspired by Vienna as well. Titled “The Pension Grillparzer,” the story concerns an odd circus family, their unicycle-riding bear, and the narrator’s family, whose job is to rate guest accommodations in Austria. The story wins the heart of Helen Holm, the wrestling coach’s daughter, and she and Garp are soon married. Helen becomes an English professor while Garp continues to write, clean house, cook, and run or wrestle every day. In no time, he is also caring for two sons, Duncan and Walt.
An attractive young couple, Garp and Helen are not without their faults. Garp has sex with the occasional babysitter, and both Helen and Garp enjoy the physical company of Harrison and Alice Fletcher. Helen and Harrison, colleagues at the university, have an affair, and Alice, who has an affair with Garp, is an aspiring writer with a strong lisp. The foursome eventually dissolves, as the Fletchers move away. Garp writes two novels and gains a reputation as a minor but serious writer. He and his mother share the same New York editor, John Wolf, who is tolerant of both Jenny and Garp and encourages Garp through his many cases of writer’s block.
Helen has a love affair with a graduate student named Michael Milton, who had pursued Helen. Not finding an attentive lover in Garp, Helen had turned to Michael for love; in some important ways, Michael reminded her of Garp. Over the years, Garp had become overprotective of his family, a protectiveness that bordered on an obsession with safety. He would chase down speeding cars in his neighborhood and lecture their drivers.
One rainy night, a car crash kills young Walt, partially blinds Duncan, and causes Helen to accidentally bite off three-fourths of Michael’s penis. Garp, Helen, and Duncan recuperate after being nursed back to health by Jenny. The family then decides to get away from it all; they visit Vienna to help them forget their awful past. Helen becomes pregnant and has another child, a girl; she is named Jenny for her grandmother.
Meanwhile, Garp’s mother, Jenny, is in the middle of a controversy at home: She is the subject of hatred because she is assumed to be lesbian and because of her apparent disdain for men. While attending a political rally, she is gunned down, assassinated by a man with a deer-hunting rifle. Garp’s family rushes home, just as Garp’s newest novel is being published. The book is a best seller but is critically panned. The novel deals with the rape of a woman and the effect of her rape on her family. Garp is viewed by some as a traitor to his mother’s image, but as the executor of her will, he must carry on her work, whether he likes her past work or not.
Jenny’s political involvement had included forming a movement in response to the rape and assault of Ellen James, a child, whose attacker also had cut out her tongue. In sympathy, a group of women in her community volunteered to have their own tongues cut out. They called themselves the Ellen Jamesians. Jenny had taken them in at her home in Dog’s Head Harbor over the years. Garp despises them for their cheap victimization and their stupidity in maiming themselves to make a political statement. He cannot contain his outrage, especially after meeting Ellen James—she tells him that she hates the Ellen Jamesians.
Like his mother, Garp becomes a target of extremists. After one failed attempt at his life, Garp is approached in the gymnasium at Steering School during wresting practice by a woman wearing a nurse’s uniform. The woman is Pooh Percy, his childhood friend and a recent convert to the Ellen Jamesians. Pooh guns Garp down, and Helen holds him in her arms as he dies.
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