Themes in "A Prayer For Owen Meany"

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Apparent Themes in A Prayer For Owen Meany


(1)


A) A strong faith and desire can help someone to overcome physical restraints in their life.


B) Owen


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C) Owen, with his very short height and small figure, had a faith larger than life. Owen, an avid collector of baseball cards, plays baseball in a town league with Johnny. Since he is so small, he has a small strike zone and is constantly threatened by the pitchers to swing, or be hit by the ball. He tries in vain to hit the ball, swinging and missing every time. “Yet Owen loved his baseball cards�and, for some reason, he clearly loved the game of baseball itself, although the game was cruel to him.” (4) With a strong desire, Owen was determined each time he stepped up to the plate. Whether he walked or struck out, he always remained in control of his frustration with the game and cleared his head for the next try. His immense faith and desire to succeed helped him throughout his life to reach levels that were beyond his grasp or capability of reaching. The one time he did succeed, he hit the infamous foul ball that hit Johnny’s mom and forever changed their lives. With this personal success of breaking down his barrier of his physical restraint, was also a moment of tragedy when he ditches America’s favorite pastime.


()


A) Inseparable friends leave a long lasting impression on each other.


B) John


C) John, long after the death of Owen, remembers him for many things. He recalls his physical characteristics, his strong faith, his claim to be God’s instrument, his foul ball, his knowledge, and his detailed memory of the Vietnam War. “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, but because he is the reason I believe in God…” (1) This quote shows how John’s closest friend, almost a brother to him, has forever made an impact on his life and will forever remain in it as an icon that signifies the many things that Owen represented in Johnny’s view. As Mr. Chickering said, “Your memory is a monster, you forget�it doesn’t. It simply files things away, or hides things from you�and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory, but it has you!” (4) He shows how memory can be good, but it can also be horrible in the way that it sticks to you and is a constant reminder of past happenings. Johnny is furious with the Vietnam War and the Reagan administration because it was them that took Owen away from him. Johnny will never forget Owen and how much he gave to him and how much he put into his life.


()


A) Pride in one’s duty can exploit tragedy.


B) Chief Pike


C) When Owen hit the foul ball that struck and killed Tabitha Wheelwright, Johnny’s mother, the police chief Pike immediately began asking for the ball. This senseless act stunned the coach of the team and others standing around. He begins to treat the sudden death like an ordinary murder case, rather than a serious case of tragedy that it is. “ ‘Where’s the ball?’…’Well it’s the murder weapon, kind of…the instrument of death, I guess you’d call it.’ ” Chief Pike calls the ball the ‘murder weapon’ and the ‘instrument of death,’ not realizing that its is not a serial killer that struck her down, but a foul ball from a small boy, an accident. He lets the pride attached to his duty get in the way of seeing the reality of the situation. His pride blinds his sense of finding truth in a matter.


(4)


A) Jealousy can bring someone to cause another pain or misery.


B) Randy White


C) Randy White, the new headmaster of the academy immediately takes a liking to Owen and his ambition. This judgment of character goes sour when Owen does many things that make Randy mad. For instance Owen, with his byline THE VOICE, criticizes Randy in his editorial column in the Gravesend Academy school newspaper, The Grave. This angers Randy and he tells Owen that, “Your friends don’t watch you as closely as your enemies�and you’ve got enemies….Be careful you don’t give your enemies a way to get you” (0) This quote portrays how Randy is describing, without stating his name, himself, and his attitude towards Owen. Randy White, or Old Thorny, as called by Owen and John, indirectly implies to Owen his building cause and desire to destroy him. He tries to have Owen kicked out of school all because he was jealous of Owen’s success. Although Owen was, at times, unruly, Randy White took it on more of a personal level when he negotiated Owen’s dismissal from the school. Randy tries to take away something dear to Owen, and he ruins his chance at a college scholarship.


(5)


A) Sex can be used as a powerful instrument of revenge or as a way of validating one’s existence through promiscuous behavior.


B) Hester


C) Growing up, Hester was at a personal disadvantage in the way that she had two brothers, who constantly out did her in everything. “…Hester was born…to challenge her parents’ love with hostility toward both of them.” (56) This quote demonstrates how Hester shows hostility towards her parents because they do not seem to recognize her as profoundly as they do Noah and Simon. As Hester went through her adolescence, the only way that she found she could be noticed, “…was to intimidate every girlfriend either of them ever had and to fu the brains out of every boy they ever knew…that business of what we’re born with and what our environment does to us.” (57) This quote shows how Hester used the power of sex to bring attention to herself, to show that she did exist. With her acts, she demanded more attention and brought upon herself more respect in the way that people no longer overlooked her, but realized she was capable of almost anything.


(6)


A) Love knows no biological bounds.


B) Dan Needham


C) John Wheelwright never knew his true father until after his youth. Dan Needham raised John like a son, and loved him as a biological father would. Despite the fact that John lost his mother at an early age, and never knew his true father, his youth life was fulfilled by the love of his stepfather. “Dan told me that he understood everything, and that he loved me. I told him “You’re the best father a boy ever had-and the only father I ever needed.”(p.558) This holds true in today’s terms where occasionally a stepparent can equal, or sometimes even greater the love of a biological parent.


(7)


A) Hidden lies and guilt show up in a physical sense.


B) Rev. Merrill





C) Reverend Merrill, bluntly, is John’s true father. Because of all the years he sought to hide this great truth from John, it took a toll on his spiritual and intellectual side. A simple representation of this is the fact that Rev. Merrill has a stutter, which is well known to be a product of pressure or guilt. “The Rev. Lewis Merrill frowned. He began to stutter. ‘Owen M-M-M-Meany didn’t exactly believe he was J-J-Jesus-but he said that if I could believe in one v-v-v-virgin birth, why not in another one?” (p.540)


(8)


A) Poverty and lack of structure destroys life.


B) Dick


C) Dick grew up in a family that was poverty stricken, and that also truly didn’t


seem to care about each other. Because of this, the world and events around dick had a much greater effect on his impressionable mind. Radical thoughts and opinions were formed in his head, and were later carried out, in the killing of Owen Meany. The following quote explains his infatuation with Vietnam and war “They don’t blow as good as ours…’ Dick said ‘Fuin commie sht,’ he said ‘but it’ll still do a job on ya.” (p.5)


()


A) Most people are fakes, they do not know who they truly are or what they do.


B) Dr. Dolder


C) Dr. Dolder sought to help Owen Meany as the school counselor, or therapist. Rather than helping Owen to better realize his faults and problems, Dr. Dolder asks Owen about Rev. Merrill (Who Owen also sees for help), and what Rev. Merrill discussed with Owen. Rather than making his own points in trying to help Owen or even create his own opinions and ideas, Dr. Dolder needs the unknowing help of another.


(10)


A) One values their own reputation over another’s


B) Barbara Wiggin


C) At the Christmas pageant, Barbara Wiggin thought it best to kiss Owen and make him blush. She thought that, because Owen was sick, baby Jesus (played by Owen) needed this. Sacrificing Owen to embarrassment, Barb Wiggin represented humanities selfishness. “Barb Wiggin bent over him and massaged his cheeks… ‘The baby Jesus should be apple cheeked’ she said… quite unexpectedly, she kissed him on the mouth.” (p.14) Besides the way she kissed him being morally wrong (age difference, etc.) she sacrificed so much of Owens pride for something so little; most of the audience would never even notice Owen’s blush.


A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving


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