A Prayer For Owen Meany Fate Analysis

Fate has been questioned since the beginning of time and whether humans have control over their destiny, or a higher power decides. In today’s society of medical and technological innovations the accepted attitude is that of free-will: that humans make their own destiny. In A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving uses the motif hands, Owen’s fate, and its effect on Johnny to influence the reader’s view in the argument of pre-determined fate vs. free-will. In a world moving away from religion and pre-determined fate, Irving implores the reader to question how much control they truly have. To mold one's own fate is to use the hands of free will. Irving repeats the motif of the removal of hands to symbolize the loss of free will through the armless totem,
and the armadillo. The armlessness totem of the sagamore Watahantowet is used to introduce the loss of free will to a higher power (8). Irving even directly states it through the town’s interpretation of the totem in saying, “it was how it made the sagamore feel to give up all that land—to have his arms cut off” (8). Irving establishes this link of helplessness and arm/handless early on to convey how character’s feel when they are helpless or armless in deciding their fate. When Owen takes the armadillos claws,it is no longer able to stand on its own. Owen then compares himself to the helpless armadillo when he explains to Johnny that “GOD HAS TAKEN MY HANDS.
I AM AN INSTRUMENT OF GOD” (87). Owen believes that because of what has happened with the foul ball, like the armadillo, he can no longer
stand on his own without the help of a higher power. This is the beginning of Irving utilizing Owen as a vice for increasing doubt in free will. However, at this point there is little evidence to back Owen’s claim of “instrumentation”. Irving truly builds the doubt by providing increasing evidence for Owen’s claim, the most convincing being Owen’s demise. Irving introduces this idea that Owen is an instrument of God and thus a victim of fate here but then as the story progresses this crazy idea builds more traction to the reader and Johnny, building doubt of the notion of free-will.
Irving uses characters that are victims of fate to challenge Johnny’s, and other characters like Hester’s and Dan’s, belief in free-will to also influence the reader’s view.
When Owen first comes up with the idea that he is an instrument of God, most characters like John, Dan, and Hester count it as Owen trying to cope with what he had done. As the novel progresses, Irving provides miraculous evidence to these doubters to sway their view on the idea of their own free will and eventually shatter the idea entirely with Owen’s pre-destined demise. Their change in belief provides even more reason for the reader to doubt their view of their control of their fate. Owen is the biggest embodiment of predetermined fate and his “crazy” idea that he is an instrument of God becomes believable as he fulfills his “dream” and even knows his date of death. Irving gives these beliefs little validity until they come true as Owen believes he learns his fate through a dream and the day it will happen through a vision when he is running a fever. The fact that Owen saw his name on a grave in a play about death, while sick with a fever is the very reason Dan (and the reader) brush off Owen’s vision as just a fever dream of excitement (245).This seems preposterous as fate and a vision of it have very little validation at this point in the novel, especially in today’s time of moving away from religion towards free-will. Johnny shares the reader's disbelief in Owen’s “contact” with a higher power
when he tells him, “You can’t believe that God wants you to go to Vietnam for the purpose of making yourself available to rescue these characters in a dream!” (476). Hester also believes Owen is crazy as she screams “I’m not listening to this shit, Owen- not one more time, I told you!”(471). These characters and the reader are now worried about Owen as they believe he is lost to these “crazy” ideas. However, Owen’s fate, and the date of it, happen exactly as he predicted to the Johnny’s and the reader’s surprise (615). In the end, Johnny, along with the other characters who doubted him, sees Owen was a victim of a higher power, fate, as he says “they were the forces we didn’t have the faith to believe in-and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him out of our hands” (617). This transition for Johnny of disbelief to seeing a victim of fate inspires the change in him that Irving wishes to see in the reader as he modifies their view on fate which is embodied by Johnny’s quote “Owen Meany is the reason I believe in God”(1).
Irving challenges the reader’s position in the argument of free-will vs. predetermined fate by probing with reoccurring symbols of armlessness to subtly show instances of fate intervening underlying major plot points and then through Owen’s prophesied fate and its effect on not just Johnny in making them believe to make the reader question their own effect on their path and thus their belief.