Writing Feedback / Essay on A Prayer for Owen Meany [18]

I am Struggling with an essay i have to write on this novel. I have a rough draft that is pretty disorganized, unfortunately i have to write about how mental or physiological events play a part in the outcome and importance of the novel. If someone could help me by reading over what i have and giving me some feedback i would greatly appreciate it.

Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument, throughout the novel "A Prayer for Owen Meany" both Owen and Johnny meet many strange anomalies for regular mortals that confirm to each other that Owen is indeed God's instrument. The events that most greatly affect Owens's life and essentially the outcome of the book are encountered through physiological discoveries. Owens's claimed vision of the angel of death in Johnny's mothers room, Owen seeing a date upon Scrooge's gravestone, and when Owen dreams of his own death.

Tragedy is introduced early in the novel with the death of Mrs. Wheelwright; however, it plays a vital role in the remainder of the story. Owen Accidentally kills Mrs. Wheelwright during a baseball game, and as the novel progresses it's learned that this death was fate. "He had interrupted the angel of death at her holy work; she had reassigned the task...to him" (Irving 103). Owen, during one of his visits to Mrs. Wheelwright's room claims to have disturbed the angel of death and prevented it from killing her. This is one of the first signs to Owen that he is God's instrument, he feels that god guided him to hitting the baseball at Mrs. Wheelwright, for this was the way fate dealt with her escape from death. Owen described the event as "The fated Baseball". The author, until after the actual death of Mrs. Wheelwright withheld this information, by doing this he manipulated the reader into thinking as Johnny had, that Owen is divine. As the novel progressed Owen encountered similar dealings that continued to reaffirm his faith as well as Johnny's.

Arguably the most integral and plot defining moment of the story is introduced during the play The Christmas Carol. "It wasn't just my name... I mean not the way I ever write it-not the way I wrote it in the baby powder. It was my real name-it said the whole thing"(Irving 254). Owen during a play had seen his full name and a date upon a gravestone; this proved to Owen that he had the hands of god, and that his destiny was scripted. This is the first introduction of some type of conflict in the novel, for it foreshadows the death of Owen, and it poses the question, will Owen die upon this predetermined date? In Owens's eyes and later Johnny's, the occurrence of Owen seeing when his final day will come during Christmas, the Christian holiday that symbolizes the resurrection of Christ, that Owen is a possible child of God, but most definitely supernatural. Here again the Author decides to wait until later in the story to unveil that Owen was a virgin birth. This Knowledge settles that matter that Owen is godlike, yet the reader is handed shock when much later in the book this information is unleashed. These occurrences to Owen seem to build upon each other, for as years pass, Owen receives his culminating message.

Throughout the novel Owens's most disturbing vision was the seeing of his own (full) name upon a gravestone, however much later in the story it is described to the reader that Owen had a recurring dream depicting his own death and the manner in which it would occur. "I know when I am going to die-and now the dream has shown me how I am going to die, I am going to be a hero! I trust that god will help me"(416 Irving). During this stage of the novel it is clear to Johnny and the reader that Owen has been entrusted by god to do some heroic action. This sets the book up for an eventful finish, where all of the previously mentioned events and others unify together for Owen to fulfill what he saw of himself.

The Books main theme is Owens's extraordinary life, and the main conflict is if all of Owens's physiological occurrences will lead him to fulfill his one destiny? This question finds closure in the final pages of the book; Owen manages to perform gods will and he saves a group of Vietnamese children from death by utilizing the "shot" that he and Johnny had practiced so abundantly. The author cleverly used many of Owens intrinsic events to build a conflict and story line behind. The Author took the reader upon the same journey Johnny did by slowly leaking information of Owens's physiological life until Owens final act made sense.