In the novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, the character of Owen Meany achieves this painful process of growing up.

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Madeeha Qasmi

ELI OA1

Mr. Flynn

January 10, 2003

Owen Meany Essay

        A popular theme in literature concerns the concept of ‘growing up’, a painful process by which a character achieves maturity, self-knowledge and confidence.  In the novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, the character of Owen Meany achieves this painful process. Owen Meany is introduced in the novel as a remarkable individual and throughout it can be observed how the brilliant child evolves into the memorable individual that he turns into. In the novel, A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving, Owen Meany matures, gains self-knowledge and confidence to become the miracle that his character was.

        Owen Meany was obviously a brilliant child, but was still able to improve on his excellent character as he was growing. This can be seen through Owen’s maturity level. He was always remarkable advanced and mature for his age, but as he became older, he understood even more than before. His best friend was Johnny Wheelwright. In their friendship, Owen looked after Johnny. He gave him advice and even helped him out academically. When Johnny was bitter about his mother not revealing to him who his father was before she died, Owen came up with a mature response, “Of course, as Owen pointed out to me, I was only eleven when she died, and my mother was only thirty; she probably thought she had a lot of time left to tell me the story. She didn’t know she was going to die, as Owen Meany put it.” (Irving 10) In the face of irrationality, Owen found it easy to point out the logic. The easy way he comes up with intelligent responses to difficult questions are proof of this child’s brilliance. Later on his life, the reader sees that Owen has matured in regards to his perspective on Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had been somewhat of a hero in Owen’s mind and he had felt betrayed by him. He is able to later recover from this viewpoint and analyze the situation differently.

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        She’s just like our whole country - not quite young anymore. But not old either; a little breathless, very beautiful, maybe a little stupid, maybe a lot more smarter than she seemed. And she was looking for something - I think she wanted to be good. Look at the men in her life - Joe DiMaggio, Arthur Miller, maybe the Kennedys. Look at how good they seem! Look at how desirable she was! … She was never quite happy … She was just like our whole country … Those famous powerful men - did they really love her? Did they ...

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