This interpretation of bildungsroman, is very ironic and even mocking to the genre. Irving thwarts the Romantic elements of bildung by making irony so essential, and constantly challenging the Romantic idea of Garp as a 'heroic' protagonist. Garp is never fully successful in the classic sense of achieving a specific goal, and hence Garp would be defined as a failure regarding the classic interpretation of bildung.
This is, however, the essence of Irving's interpretation of the bildung genre. He wants his audience to think beyond that of a cliché plot and protagonist, and to accept and reflect on bildung as seen in a much more modern context. Hence to foil a common assumption like the way bildung is originally viewed upon, the best strategy is to provoke the readers into perceiving the genre from another angle, and thus breaking down all expectations.
It is, however, arguable that the story would be possible to tell without relying on it to be a bildungsroman exactly like Irving gives us. It would of course be very possible to advance the plot from A to B by writing from a different angle, with a different style. E.g. if “The World According to Garp” was written as the memories of Duncan Garp, he would maybe then tell how he fits in his father’s tale, and possibly include a lot of flashbacks about Garp’s life that could give the overall picture of the plot, just as well as the original story. However, these memories or flashbacks could only be deduced from external sources, as Duncan Garp would not share the same insight of his father’s memories and therefore not quite as valid as when we follow Garp’s life chronologically with an all-knowing third person narrator who are able to penetrate the characters and read their minds and feelings:
“They finished their meal in silence. Helen knew Garp was thinking up a story to tell Walt after dinner. She knew Garp did this to calm himself whenever he was worried about the children – as if the act of imagining a good story for children was a way to keep children safe forever.” (Page 250)
Without Irving's interpretation of bildung, all the irony and provocation, which defines the novel, would be lost, or at least very difficult to assess in the same sense, and thus the main motive forces would be rendered irrelevant.
Black humour and irony
Black humour can be defined as the presentation of disillusionment and cynicism, and is closely related to irony. As “The World According to Garp” is a piece of tragicomedy, the reader finds himself tossed forth and back between happiness, joy, and laughter, as well as stunning, horrific, and brutal moments. This is black humour and irony in its purest form and is best described by analysing the novel’s most important turn of events: the climax.
Here, the reader witnesses a horrible car accident in the Garp’s driveway, where Garp smashes into a large, still-standing Buick that belongs to Michael Milton, Helen’s lover:
“The three-ton Buick did not yield an inch to Garp’s coasting car. Inside the Volvo the children were like eggs out of the egg box – loose inside the shopping bag – at the moment of impact.”
Bones are broken, flesh is torn, and bonds are severed, yet in midst of the tragic event, the reader would find himself laughing out loudly, simply because it is all so ironic, and in many ways also full of humour - black humour. The tricky thing about black humour is that it is totally depending on what context one sees it. It should therefore be taken into account that at this point in the story, the reader has grown very attached to the characters involved, and is therefore able to sum up a lot of important plot details in order to fully comprehend this incident, and find it somewhat humoristic. Details like why Garp had left the cinema with his sons before the movie ended, why he turned off the headlights on the way up the driveway, and even why the Volvo’s gearshift knob is missing.
All these little details (amongst many others) are all present to do the setting of the horrible accident and set the mood to be a mix of shock, awe, sadness, and black humour. Without it, there would not be much sense in laughing, and the accident would only serve the sole purpose of advancing the plot by supplying the reader with an ever-so-classic agent of advancing a plot: a simple climax. Here, it is still a climax, yet so much more: more vivid and intense, more unique, and much more true to the experience Irving intends to give.
As stated previously, the black humour and irony lies within all the little details. For instance, the fact that Garp is such an overprotective father and yet still indirectly contributes to the death of one son and mutilation of another, or when Helen feels the guilt coming off her shoulders as she is satisfying Michael Milton in his car, and right after she is haunted with new guilt because she contributed indirectly to the accident in the driveway. The incidence later in the novel where Garp is assassinated in the very same place as he grew up, also displays elements of irony and black humour.
The black humor in “The World According to Garp” has a key function regarding the way the novel is meant to be read. Irving uses the stylistic device to play with the reader’s thoughts, and influence the plot so that it stays fresh, surprising and entertaining. With the irony and black humour, the reader is able to look back after reading the book and think of the details and plot twists while smiling slightly and shaking his head, because each individual reader forms his own impressions and perceptions. Black humour is quite vague and in most cases very subjective to the one perceiving it, and is therefore an excellent way for an author to involve his audience in his work, as the readers will each think and deduce different things. Some people, however, might not be able to comprehend the black humour at all, as it is in fact one of the more delicate sides of comedy.
Foreshadowing
In “The World According to Garp”, foreshadowing is an important literary device. Foreshadowing is a term covering the act of setting up expectations or explanations of later plot issues and developments. An easy example of a classic foreshadowing would be when the two protagonists in “Romeo and Juliet” both state that they would rather die than live apart, and hence the reader is given a hint on what is going to happen further on, or at least the reader can look back and draw a connection after reading it through.
In “The World According to Garp” this is highly significant technique and has a great effect, as it is used all along the plot. An early example of this could be Garp’s childhood confrontation with the dog Bonkers who bites off a piece of Garp’s ear:
“But on the Percy’s lawn, Bonkers broke up a touch football game by hurling his one hundred and seventy pounds on five-year-old Garp’s back and biting off the child’s left earlobe – and part of the rest of Garp’s ear, as well.”
This particular example foreshadows Garp’s later confrontation with the dog during his teen years, where Garp has his revenge by biting off a lump of the dog’s ear.
Later in the novel more examples of foreshadowing occur. One involves the previously mentioned accident in the Garp’s driveway and the Volvo’s missing knob on the gearshift. Before the incident happens, the gear knob is discussed by Helen and Garp, procrastinating replacing it:
“The knob had been falling off for weeks, the screw threads were stripped, and Garp had several times attempted to make the knob stay on the stick-shift shaft with tape. Helen had complained about this half-assed method of repair, but Garp never claimed to be handy and the care of the car was one of Helen’s domestic responsibilities.”
As we know, Duncan ultimately loses an eye on the gearshift with the missing knob, as he is thrown forward with the force of the crashing car, penetrating his eye on the stripped screw threads. This is foreshadowed by Helen and Garp’s procrastination of getting it repaired; if they had only replaced it in time, Duncan would never have lost his eye, which is exactly what becomes clear to the reader after reading both about the car accident.
Another example of foreshadowing is present, also expressing ironic elements:
“Sometimes she imagined taking him into her mouth while they drove across town in the big car with the gaping chrome grille like the mouth of a feeding fish - ‘Buick Eight’ in the script across the teeth. But that, Helen knew, would not be safe.”
Obviously, this small paragraph gives us hints about the later mangling of Michael Milton’s penis. However, the ironic part is that as Helen deems it to be unsafe and dangerous thing to do while driving, it actually proves to be more dangerous when the car is stopped.
Lastly, Duncan loses an arm in the epilogue of the novel, which is also foreshadowed earlier after the Garp’s return from Europe on the occasion of Jenny Field’s assassination:
“’I see a man with one arm’, Duncan said.”
All these little, subtle hints are all dropped with a purpose, and hence they are important. John Irving’s intentions with the use of foreshadowing, are to challenge and tease the reader to constantly keep pondering about why ‘this and that’ is mentioned or what might happen next. It is essential to the core atmosphere of the novel, as it keeps the one reading it ‘trapped’ and almost forces the him to carry on exploring the novel and how the plot is going to develop.
This technique is, however, a little bit risky; if the author do not manage to find, and keep the balance between foreshadowing and giving away plot details, it might quickly make the outcome too obvious and predictable for the reader, hence not as interesting.
Irving manages to avoid such flaws in a brilliant manner. Throughout the entire book, Irving gives the reader quite enough information to make it interesting and encourage the reader to think and ponder, while reading or when reflecting back on a chapter, whilst still keeping the vital plot twists well hidden within the element of surprise, greatly helped by the irony and black humour. By merging foreshadowing with black humour and irony, the reader is given hints and things to ponder, yet still exposed to surprises and irony resulting in what one might call “that-did-not-just-happen –moments”.
Without this cunning correlation between the different stylistic devices, the plot development would not have been as carefully thought out as it is.
To state a counter example, Irving could have chosen other means to explore his novel. Another most competent way would be to use a style called ‘red herring’, which is a sub-technique of foreshadowing, often used in mystery fiction and soap operas. (Briefly, this technique is simply a way to distract the audience from important issues regarding plot details and development.) However, if Irving had chosen to make use of that technique he would have had a much harder time integrating irony and black humour, as ‘red herring’ requires a pretty straight-forward detail interface in order to be effective. ‘Red herring’ can be confusing and surprising as it is, and by mixing in other elements such as irony and black humour; it can result in even more confusion in a negative manner. And without irony, black humour, and foreshadowing working together, the progress and development of the plot in “The World According to Garp” would not have been the same at all.
Symbolism
Symbolism works under the surface along other stylistic agents. Symbols are found in almost any piece of literature, and “The World According to Garp” is no exception: the Under Toad.
“The Under Toad” is the internal method used by Helen and Garp to describe when danger lurks or when something is up. It origins from summers at the beach where the children, Walt and Duncan, would play near the ocean. As Walt approached the waters, Duncan would tell him “watch out for the undertow!”, and then Walt would take his distance and be cautious. The third summer at the beach, Walt was peeking into the water and his brother would ask him what he was looking for.
“‘The Under Toad’, Walt said. ’I’m trying to see it. How big is it?’” (Page 445)
Then his family would realise that Walt had understood it as if there was a big toad lurking under the water’s surface, ready to pull him under. The vile Under Toad.
After that incident, “the Under Toad” becomes a code phrase for anxiety between Helen and Garp. It becomes a way for them to express their own sense of danger; it becomes a symbol, and it remains a symbol for Garp and Helen throughout the book. Whenever they ‘sense’ danger, they refer to the Under Toad:
“In Vienna, Garp felt the Under Toad was strong.” (Page 446)
This quote refers to the murder of Garp’s mother, Jenny fields. At the time, the Garp’s are sent away on occasion of Garp’s new book “The World According to Bensenhaver” which is being published. Garp has a strong feeling that something is ‘coming’, and this feeling is what the dreaded Under Toad describes.
To the reader, however, the Under Toad is not just a symbol of danger used by the characters in the novel. The Under Toad is somewhat the very core of the novel. All plot twists, all important details, the climax, and the epilogue, all involves elements of the Under Toad - even a chapter is named “The habits of the Under Toad”! The reason is that in “The World According to Garp” the plot is all about how T.S. Garp and his family get by and how their lives unravel. As stated, a lot of stylistic devices are used to advance the plot, and symbolism involving ‘the Under Toad’ is just as significant. “The Under Toad” is causing something for the characters which has an effect on them, and hence the plot. For instance, the driveway-accident is a clear example of the Under Toad’s intervention:
“(...) But it was neither green nor brown, Garp thought. It was me. It was Helen. It was the color of bad weather. It was the size of an automobile.”
After the accident, the family is reduced to three persons instead of four, and they are thrown head-first into a new life. The plot is advanced with the help of “the Under Toad”; it is progressed by periodically occurring incidents, symbolised by the Under Toad.
The plot of a novel is often a complicated matter. Many things happen, many characters are introduced, a lot of places are visited, settings are set, and dialogues and monologues occur. What is equally important regarding a story’s plot, is not necessarily what meets the eye, but what’s beneath the surface; all those small details which make up the infrastructure of a piece of literature: the styles.
In “The World According to Garp", the various styles play a vital role in connection with many aspects, and especially when it comes down to the plot. The novel gets its own personal touch from the way it is composed, and it has a great influence on how it is perceived and remembered. The styles of “The World According to Garp” are key elements, and the novel could not do without them.