A Prayer for Owen Meany Theme Analysis Essay Example

witnesses Owen’s miracle save, he suddenly believes.

However, he also becomes angry with God. From the beginning, Owen believed there were no accidents in life, only God’s will. Trouble started when at one of John and Owen’s little league games, Owen killed John’s mother, Tabitha, watching from the third base line, by hitting her with a ball he hit. Owen believed that because he interrupted an Angle of Death he said he saw in Tabitha’s room one night when he had a fever, that God used him to finish the job, as he said on page 337 “GOD HAS TAKEN YOUR MOTHER... MY HANDS WERE THE INSTRUMENT, GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS. This was why when they were eleven, Owen took him and John’s favorite toy armadillo and removed its claws, to show what words couldn’t explain at the time. The craziest thing John and Dan discover after the night Owen walked in on the Angle in Tabitha’s room and Johns grandmother comes in and is so frightened by Owen in the dark that she screams. Owen said she was “WAILING LIKE A BANSHEE,” (Irving 105) and later John and Dan find out a banshee literally is a female spirit who wailing is a sign that a loved one will die soon.

Although he was having visions and prophecies then, he probably did not know the extent of how much he would help the world. Owen Meany died, in Pheonix, Arizona, during the Vietnam War. He was a lieutenant and died protecting Vietnamese children and nuns from a man blinded by hate towards the Viet Cong. This one scene in the book explains

so many occurrences in the book. First off, Owen had a vision during his performance of “The Christmas Carol,” when he looked at Scrooge’s headstone. The headstone reads “1LT Paul O. Meany, Jr. ” as well as a date of death. He believes this is the day he is going to die.

He also knows that he is going to be a first lieutenant in the Vietnam War. John writes that later, after Owen already died, he read Owens diary, and in one entry from college, Owen talks about a repetitive dream he had that showed how he was going to die. Another peculiar thing Owen did was insisting to John to perfect “The Shot”. The shot was a slam dunk move which John picked up Owen for him to slam the basketball, but Owen wanted to do it in under four seconds. This really did not make sense, but it was clear that it was going to be significant, especially considering Owen never did anything without significance in his life.

Owen also made sure that John would not be in the Vietnam War and available to him at any time for visits, and he insured this by cutting off John’s middle index finger. Which refers back to John saying “Owen gave me more than he ever took from me- even when you consider that he took my mother,” (Irving 93). But unlike how Owen feels about John going, Owen insists that he has to go to Vietnam- "I DON'T WANT TO BE A HERO... IT'S NOT THAT I WANT TO BE-IT'S THAT I AM A HERO. I KNOW THAT'S WHAT I'M SUPPOSED

TO BE,” (Irving 471).

When Owen does go into the Vietnam War, not only does he excel and become a lieutenant, he personally decides to learn how to speak Vietnamese. During the Vietnam War, Owen calls John and insistently asks him to come visit him in Phoenix with no explanation. John thought nothing of it and they spent days swimming, drinking and catching up. They also meet Dick Jarvits, a fifteen-year-old boy who hates the Viet Cong and is exactly what his name says he is. At the end of their visit, Owen brings John to the airport. At the airport they see a large group of Vietnamese war orphans and nuns passing by.

A nun asks Owen to take the group to the bathroom and John goes with them. It is a small, cement bathroom with only one window ten feet up off the ground. For some reason Dick Jarvits is at the airport and appears in the bathroom with a grenade. Owen yells at the children to get down in Vietnamese “DOONG SA- DON’T BE AFRAID,” (Irving 612), and they trust him and listen. Out of nothing but pure hatred, Dick throws the grenade in and runs away. Owen says “WE’LL HAVE JUST FOUR SECONDS,” (Irving 612) insinuating to John they were going to perform “The Shot” one last time.

John lifts Owen in the air and Owen pins the grenade to the window ledge. He protects his head but the grenade detonates and blows Owens little arms off. Owen’s appearance never bothered him, his tiny body and loud high pitched voice, because he always thought he was born that

was for a purpose- which he was. Owen became a lieutenant during the Vietnam war and learned how to speak Vietnamese. On the day Owen believed he was going to die, he spent it with his best friend protecting innocent lives. In just four pages, Irving puts everything together.

Owens voice, small size and his need to want to learn Vietnamese, without those two things, he wouldn’t have been able to communicate or be trusted by the Vietnamese children who saw him as a child also- “It was not only because he spoke their language; it was his voice that compelled the children to listen to him-it was a voice like their voices,” (Irving 612). Two more important things Owen had made sure of: Johns presence and the ability to perform “The Shot”. If Owen had never cut off John’s finger, he most likely been out of his reach somewhere in the war at the time he needed him.

Also, Owen’s sudden interest in basketball during high school did not make sense, until he needed his and Johns slam dunk move to get the grenade high enough away to not harm the children. “NOW I KNOW WHY YOU HAD TO BE HERE... REMEMBER ALL OUT PRACTICING? ” (Irving 615). One day when Owen and John were younger at the academy, Owen took a statue from outside the Catholic school. He bolted to the stage in the auditorium and removed its arms, and just like when Owen had called John’s grandmother a banshee before Tabitha’s death, Owen symbolized the loss of his arms when he was older.

Owen’s sacrificial death only reinforces what

was already known about Owen- that he believed there were no accidents, that he was put in the moment on purpose and that he had a duty assigned to him by God. Owen’s faith in not questioned, only secured and is made more sensible by the end of the book. John, however, did not always have faith, and Owen’s life and death helped him get that. However, another problem John has to face is that once he believes in everything Owen ever told him, he has a hard time accepting that it was God’s will to take his best friend away.

Not only that, but he also starts to look at Owen as a messiah he played as a child in the Christmas pageant, and wants him to come back. Although, also according to John, Owen never really leaves, and he is visited by his ghost twice. Once as an older man, after Owen’s death, John is over at 80 Front Street having a drink with Dan. John tries to go downstairs but couldn’t find the light switch and began to lose balance, but then he feels a hand guide him to the switch and catch him- “... and his voice- it was unmistakably Owen’s voice saying DON’T BE AFRAID.

NOTHING BAD IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU,” (Irving 517). Throughout the entire book A Prayer for Owen Meany, the author John Irving demonstrates the character’s opinions on faith and fate, and how it changes or strengthens with each character over their lifetime. Every character who has a change of fate was affected by Owen Meany. It is ironic because Owen was intially

introduced as the boy who accidentally hurt many people by Tabitha’s death, and it is Owen who actually ends up saving not only the group of Vietnamese children but also several people’s faith in God.