The World According To Garp

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1978

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-4

Chapters 5-9

Chapters 10-14

Chapters 15-19

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Background

Authorial Context: John Irving and T. S. Garp

The World According to Garp is Irving’s fourth novel, and by the time of its publication, he was already well-established as an author of literary fiction. Like Pat Conroy and Tobias Wolff, Irving is associated with depicting mid-20th-century white men who are conscious of their privilege but are unsure or disinterested in their desire to combat it.

Like Garp, Irving tries to reconcile his relationship with fiction and autobiography. He and his eponymous protagonist both never knew their fathers, who fought in World War II. He also grew up in the vicinity of their New England boarding school, a connection enabled because their relatives were on the staff. He also was a wrestler and coach. Both men traveled extensively throughout Vienna.

In the introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of the text, Irving clarifies some explicit autobiographical elements of the novel. He and Garp both endure considerable anxiety surrounding parenthood. At the time of writing Garp, Irving was still married to his first wife, with whom he has two sons (similar to Garp). Irving was born in 1942. He became a Canadian citizen in 2019. Garp’s progressive stance toward gender politics is notable considering that his demographic is usually not associated with progressive views. Irving’s youngest child transitioned from male to female in 2016, and in interviews (such as this 2022 conversation that appeared on the Exeter Academy Alumni website), he discusses how proud he is of her and how much her bravery has influenced his writing.

Cultural Context: The Feminist Movement

The feminist movement is traditionally understood as occurring in waves. The first wave took place roughly from the late 19th century through the early 20th century. The primary aim of first-wave feminism was to win the right to vote; American women won this right in 1920. First-wave feminism was more accessible to white, middle- and upper-class women. Second-wave feminism began in the 1960s and continued until the early 1990s. Like first-wave feminism, second-wave feminism was critiqued for not considering the experiences of all women, particularly nonwhite women. The main concerns of second-wave feminists included equal pay and access to safe abortions. Third-wave feminism, which began in the early 1990s, is associated with intersectionality and a more inclusive approach to considering the experiences of women who are not just white or middle- and upper-class.

The World According to Garp was published in 1978 at the height of second-wave feminism, and the character of Jenny Fields would be considered a second-wave feminist. In the introduction to the 40th anniversary edition of the text, Irving concedes that his views on feminism now are different from when he wrote Garp. At the time of its publication, Garp could have been considered a progressive feminist text in that it offers sympathetic depictions of women, including a trans woman. However, subsequent generations of readers have invoked a more critical lens. For example, the novel’s suggestion that women are superior to men because they are inherently smarter and stronger represents a type of weaponized incompetence, as it suggests men are incapable of addressing their culpability in imbalanced gender dynamics. Garp’s novella The World According to Bensenhaver suggests that Hope and other rape victims are capable of handling such trauma because women are inherently stronger than men, which does not interrogate why women are being victimized in the first place. Rather than using an awareness of institutionalized male advantages and weaknesses to exhort men to improve their behavior, Garp instead suggests that women’s superiority and ability to cope mean men don’t need to bother to improve since they are doomed to moral inferiority.