A Prayer For Owen Meany Analysis

John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany has a curious ending. The narrator, John Wheelwright, acts almost like a tour guide, taking the audience through a voyage of his life and his faith – “And if you look to the left, you’ll see my mom getting hit by a fatal baseball,” John almost seems to say – through the similarly curious Owen Meany, the reason that John is a Christian. For much of the text, A Prayer for Owen Meany seems nearly aimless, simply describing, often in detail of perplexing thoroughness, random childhood memories intercut with his current life with a slightly common yet undefined thread tying them all together. But the ending illuminates each of the seemingly meaningless plot threads, bringing order to the chaos of John’s cluttered memory. The conclusion of A Prayer for Owen Meany sheds lights on the nuances and intricacies of the novel, cementing some interpretations and opening doors to others, ensuring that it is a satisfying and, most importantly, a thought-provoking ending.

John Wheelwright’s and Owen Meany’s differing attributes highlight the use of contrast within A Prayer for Owen Meany. While Owen Meany tends to be a leader, John is a follower where his primary experiences tend to be due to Owen. Furthermore, their different appearances further illustrate their differences- while John is a typical male, Owen appears childlike in stature with a “rodent” quality to his appearance. Consequently, these comparisons between the two characters highlight the underlying theme of spirituality within the novel. Owen Meany has a continuing belief in God, even taking it as far as saying that God has a specific plan for him. “GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER. MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT. GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS. I AM GOD’S INSTRUMENT (page 90)” This quote illustrates the absolute belief that Owen has in God; despite the fact that Owen has taken the life from Tabitha Wheelwright, -----, he chalks it up to fate and God’s will. However, John Wheelwright doubts the ideologies of Christianity as he changes his denomination within the Christian community regularly. This contrast is displayed when the two boys are young sitting in church: “When I complained about church, I complained about

How many people are willing to practice their own death? Not many, right? It sounds strange, but one person in particular was eager to do just that—Owen Meany. In John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen makes many sacrifices, his biggest sacrifice being his own life. In the beginning of the novel, Owen comes across as slightly different with his minuscule size and high pitched voice, but as the novel progresses and Owen ages, his inhuman qualities become more and more prevalent, eventually leading to the biggest indicator of all—his death. In the novel, Owen Meany is willingly able to plan the sacrifice of his own life in order to save the lives of others, showing he is a supernatural being.

The novel has religious themes embedded throughout. The theme of miracles was prominent in A Prayer for Owen Meany. For example, it is believed that Owen Meany himself is a miracle of God. Like Virgin Mary, Mrs. Meany “just conceived a child” without having sex with her husband (545.) This is believed to be a miracle among characters like Johnny and the Many family but the town and church do not agree. Another theme was the Power of God. Owen was very religious and had a deep belief in God and voiced it openly saying things like “FAITH AND PRAYER. FAITH AND PRAYER - THEY WORK, THEY REALLY DO” and that God will show Johnny who his real father is in time

As John started to talk about his family’s first Christmas without their mother, the tone and diction were depressing according to chapter 4, as it is told in words: alone, imperfection, and lacking on page 150. John’s family were not full of spirit that year. The death of their deeply loved one, the care giver to all, that passed away not so long ago. Owen and John tried to stay happy, and not even think about the past. They joined the Christmas Pageant, and Owen got to Little Lord Jesus. I believe the reason why Owen wanted to be that character because he

Throughout the course of the novel, the theme of accepting fate and submitting oneself to God’s will is displayed through the faith of Owen Meany and the resolute tone in which he addresses this belief. In chapter 7 of the novel, when Owen and John go on search to find out more about John’s mother and father, Owen is met by a person named Mr. McSwiney. Mr. McSwiney and Owen talk and when the topic of John’s father comes up, the belief of Owen accepting fate and submitting will to God arises. Mr. McSwiney mentions to Owen that “ if [John’s father] was looking for you, he would have found you. ‘GOD WILL TELL HIM WHO HIS FATHER IS,’ Owen said.”

“Owen used to say, gravely, that his father would surely be damned for initiating the move, but that the Catholics had committed an UNSPEAKABLE OUTRAGE- that they had insulted his father and mother irreparably.” (Irving 22). In the beginning, Owen didn't have any idea why his parents were being shunned by the Catholics. He felt because his parents spoke with disdain, he should as well. That's when Johnny notices the affect on Owen's mom. Ever sense a young age, Owen believed he had been of virgin birth, therefor a direct descendant of God. The rejection from that religion and his anti-Catholicism upbringing caused his outlook on Catholics to be sour. The significance of the USPEAKABLE OUTRAGE is that the reader sees how Owen's, and Johnny's,

In the book A Prayer for Owen Meany, Owen Meany is a very special young man, who grows up throughout the story. Owen believes he is an instrument of God and he is on this Earth to die a hero. Owen believes he is destined to save lives, at first he thought he was meant to die in Vietnam during the war, but he later found out that he wasn’t able to go into the war because of his disability. Owen becomes a casualty-assistance officer, and asked Johnny Wheelwright to come to Arizona, where Owen is stationed, to catch up with each other. At the airport for Johnny’s departure, a teenage boy, named Dick Jarvits, throws a grenade into the bathroom full of orphaned children. John grabs the grenade and throws it up to Owen and they try to throw

Even though the entire novel centers around John Wheelwright, Owen Meany, being his best friend, plays a major effect on John and John’s life. Although Owen is similar to Jesus Christ, he does have weaknesses and strengths that made him the character we know him as. Owen stands out from the people around him not only on how he looks but how he behaves and acts. When we first meet Owen in the novel, we see Owen as one of the smartest and mature kids. When it comes to principles, Owen has very firm and informed beliefs, and he is really stubborn about his them. Owen’s belief in God is unshakeable. In fact, he has such strong faith in God that he believes he is God instrument and believes that everything is destined and there's no such things as “ACCIDENTS.” Owen believes that God has plan that Owen, being God’s instrument, will carry out and his fate and how he going to live is already destined.

Owen Meany, a character from A Prayer for Owen Meany, is not your typical boy. As a child he was outspoken, stubborn, and he believed he had a fate. Fate was the most prominent theme in this novel out of the several others shown in A Prayer for Owen Meany. The first detail that shows Owen’s belief in fate is the incident that killed Johnny’s mother, Tabby. Owen called the baseball that hit Tabby “That Fated Baseball” because he believed “there was a reason for that baseball (105).” He believed that he had interrupted the angel of death, so the angel of death gave the task to Owen. There were no accidents with Owen, it was always for a reason. He also believed his voice was for a reason. He believed his voice was a gift from God. Where his faith

Owen Meany is a firm believer in God. To him, nothing in the world is certain except for the existence of God. He uses his faith in God to justify his actions and explain the events that transpire in his life, both ordinary and extraordinary. For example, one night when Owen slept over at Johnny’s, he developed a fever and as a result ended up sleeping in Tabby’s bed. Prior to him entering her bed, Johnny had given him an aspirin and a glass of water, but forgot to turn the light and tap off. As a result, his (Johnny) grandmother had to turn off the utilities. Her simple task of turning the water off, putting the light out, and going to bed, was destroyed when she accidentally turned the tap the wrong way and proceeded to douse herself in

If Johnny would have stayed when he went back into the Meany’s home for the hat, i feel the things Owen's mother would have said kinda go like this. I'm sorry about your poor mother, I feel bad for your loss and Owen’s. I wasn't there for Owen like she was, i don't talk much because the burden of not being his mother hurts me. Owen is a good kid and very bright, he needs people like you and your mother in his life, right now he only has you. Please be there for him johnny he needs a good friend, he might seem strong but he needs a good friend. I also feel bad because he doesn’t get very many things besides his small valuables like the armadillo. He may not have many items of money value but he is very knowledgeable about his faith and schooling.

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It always seems that literature is hard to read: you know the writers have deeper meanings behind the stories they create, but what you read is mostly the simple plots that the characters play. Of course the writers utilize many techniques in their novels, but most of them are diluted into the hundreds of pages of the book, hidden around every corner of the words. Realizing this, Professor Foster writes How To Read Literature Like A Professor to teach how to interpret some of the aspects to understand the literature works. In this book, he explains how readers should treat the characters, symbolism, allusion, environment description, political implication, and other techniques that appear in novels. Those aspects usually appear in every literature book. One Hundred Years of Solitude and A Prayer for Owen Meany exemplify those aspects mentioned in Foster’s book. Interpreting these two novels by following how Foster teaches in his book, readers will be able to read literature in a new level and view.

Several themes are portrayed within the pages of A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving; nevertheless, a more prominent theme that moves the story along is that of symbolism. In the novel, Owen Meany is obsessed with armless figures all his life from Tabby’s dressmaker, to the armadillo, and finally, Mary Magdalene. Readers cannot help but to try to correlate all these images into a bigger picture.