The World According To Garp

The symbol of facial hair appears frequently, supporting the themes of gender roles, anxiety, and male impotence. As is typically seen, facial hair is equated with masculinity and maturity. Garp takes offense to Michael Milton's mustache, which he views as hopelessly infantile; its pitifulness becomes more offensive when he considers that Helen must find it attractive. Indeed, when Michael shaves the mustache, Helen is distraught to note that “his upper lip looked slightly like the puckered, undeveloped lip of a child […] it wasn’t her idea of the lip of a lover” (311). Despite this “insult to the world of hair and to the world of lips” (267), Helen chooses to continue an affair with Michael, which jeopardizes Garp’s sense of security in his own appearance.

Garp forever associates mustaches with the child rapist he tracks down in the park. The Mustache Kid “would grow a mustache, attack a child, shave the mustache (which would be all most children would remember)” (173). Garp therefore views all mustaches with suspicion, as they are an element of appearance that is easy to manipulate. When he and Duncan encounter the Mustache Kid at a basketball game years later, Garp is furious to see that he has no remorse for his crimes. After encountering the victim, he shaves his beard, “convinced he should remain clean-shaven” (178). After the incident in the park, Garp has exclusively negative associations with facial hair, assigning beards and mustaches to his unlikeable characters, such as the plumber in “Vigilance”: “There was a hint of menace in his expression, like the trace of public beard he was growing on his young chin” (279). Within this text, facial hair functions as a symbol of untrustworthiness and manipulation.

The symbolic animals support the themes of anxiety, Autobiography and Fiction, and Male Impotence. Throughout the text, dogs, pigs, bears, and elephants create anxiety for Garp and provide creative fodder. In addition to frequently appearing in names (such as Dog’s Head Harbor and Dean “Mad Dog” Bodger), dogs cause concern for Garp as the ultimate markers of suburbia. Mrs. Ralph’s dog, Bill, comforts her when men cannot and is ultimately more reliable. Garp’s long-standing feud with the Percy family’s unusually aggressive Newfoundland dog, Bonkers, creates enmity between him and the wealthy family. Bonkers causes Garp’s lifelong dislike of dogs since he forever associates the dogs of the wealthy with an undeserved sense of entitlement:

That dog was a killer, protected by one of the many thin and senseless bits of logic that the upper classes in America are famous for: namely, that the children and pets of the aristocracy couldn’t possibly be too free, or hurt anybody. That other people should not overpopulate the world, or be allowed to release their dogs, but that the dogs and children of rich people have a right to run free (51).

Garp later makes up a bedtime story for Walt, depicting a dog in an alley who desperately attempts to free himself and chase cats.

Animals frequently cause problems for Garp. He almost dies at age five while pursuing a pigeon on the roof. Pigs appear in The World According to Bensenhaver not as independent, intelligent creatures, but rather as associates of rapists and practitioners of bestiality. Women, especially Ellen Jamesians, often refer to men as pigs. For Garp, animals can offer moral instruction but rarely serve as sources of companionship or comfort. When he responds to angry letters from his fans, he includes a long anecdote about elephants at a wedding to make a claim about human hubris.