The World According To Garp: Society's Goal To Achieve Immortality
Society’s Goal to Achieve Immortality
For millennia people have been trying to find the secret to achieve immortality, but even more often wondering about life after death, and if it exists at all. As Irving stated, "You only grow by coming to the end of something and beginning something else." To their disadvantage, no one has yet lived to tell the tale, so myths and religions are used to explain the unknown. Ironically people cry when family or friends pass away, and live their life in a miserable mindset. Yet Irving’s novel, The World According to Garp depicts the comical and inevitable cycle of life and death.
The protagonist, Garp, constantly tries to keep his loved ones out of harm’s way. As a child he faces a few traumatic experiences (such as hanging off a roof, a dog biting his ear off, etc.) and deals with them in a calm way. Regardless, when it comes to his kids – Duncan and Walt, Garp tries to protect them in irrational ways. He even told Walt, “Be careful you don’t choke on that popcorn...you can’t breathe very well so just don’t put too much in your mouth,” (263). Although average bedtime stories are fairytales, he chooses to elaborate upon morals like looking both ways before crossing the street through telling scary stories. Even strangers speeding down the street cause him to chase their cars and threaten them to make sure they won’t speed again, as if he will make a difference. These extremes are out there and show how desperate Garp is to build a bubble of protection around his family. As a man he always felt “death ... does not like to wait until [they] are prepared for it. [It] is indulgent and enjoys, when it can, a flair for the dramatic” (page 367). Death is portrayed as a criminal on the loose, who’s looking for trouble.
Later in the novel, Garp realizes that the Under Toad is unavoidable. Sadly, he is killed in his safe heaven – the wrestling gym, representing a mother’s womb. As a dying man Garp thinks, “If [I] could have talk,
For millennia people have been trying to find the secret to achieve immortality, but even more often wondering about life after death, and if it exists at all. As Irving stated, "You only grow by coming to the end of something and beginning something else." To their disadvantage, no one has yet lived to tell the tale, so myths and religions are used to explain the unknown. Ironically people cry when family or friends pass away, and live their life in a miserable mindset. Yet Irving’s novel, The World According to Garp depicts the comical and inevitable cycle of life and death.
The protagonist, Garp, constantly tries to keep his loved ones out of harm’s way. As a child he faces a few traumatic experiences (such as hanging off a roof, a dog biting his ear off, etc.) and deals with them in a calm way. Regardless, when it comes to his kids – Duncan and Walt, Garp tries to protect them in irrational ways. He even told Walt, “Be careful you don’t choke on that popcorn...you can’t breathe very well so just don’t put too much in your mouth,” (263). Although average bedtime stories are fairytales, he chooses to elaborate upon morals like looking both ways before crossing the street through telling scary stories. Even strangers speeding down the street cause him to chase their cars and threaten them to make sure they won’t speed again, as if he will make a difference. These extremes are out there and show how desperate Garp is to build a bubble of protection around his family. As a man he always felt “death ... does not like to wait until [they] are prepared for it. [It] is indulgent and enjoys, when it can, a flair for the dramatic” (page 367). Death is portrayed as a criminal on the loose, who’s looking for trouble.
Later in the novel, Garp realizes that the Under Toad is unavoidable. Sadly, he is killed in his safe heaven – the wrestling gym, representing a mother’s womb. As a dying man Garp thinks, “If [I] could have talk,