John Meany's A Thematic Analysis

It’s quite clear as to why the author used these important settings during the era in order to develop the characters more. It helps us get a clear picture of what is going on in the characters heads as it helps show us their perspective on the world through a series of events through the novel. It's vital to recognize that both John and Owen went through their lives during an era of monumental cultural turmoil and political change. The world and the people around them has gradually become much less like a fairy tale and a whole lot darker as they grow up to be adults. In the early 1950s, their point of view seemed to be all trusting and naive. Then came the 1960s, and world events begins to change drastically all around them. They talk about all sorts of people and events throughout the novel.
It's clear that throughout John's life, he is constantly at odds with their current American politics and how it wages on with major turmoil. John is intensely judgemental of their current government and policies, especially under the leadership of Ronald Reagan. He realizes that his country politicians twist almost everything while they are in power. As John tells Owen Meany’s personal story, he mixes the story with keen disapproval of the settings surrounding him like the war in Vietnam, the Iran-Contra affair, and his country's politics and common issues. This atmospheric setting of war and turmoil pushed him into moving to Canada. The author used politics in the story to give us an idea on what boys like John had to go through in his life. We start to see the transformation of John as he raves with anti-Americanism as he goes through his life, but it isn't until one of the last chapter that we realize it was actually one of Owen's last desires for him. Owen believed that John should leave the US in the dust and travel to Canada where he can finally be