Chapter 16 & 17

Two events happen in the beginning of these chapters: Helen gives birth to a baby girl, Jenny Garp, and Garp decides he wants to publish the book.  His editor, John Wolf, reluctantly agrees to publish it, but because he knows how controversial the book will be, he suggests the Garps leave the country for a few months.  He does so.  At this point in the book, controversy has become a huge theme.  Almost everything Garp does is controversial.  Garp’s family goes to Vienna, where Garp spent his early life.  It is while he is here that he receives a phone call from Roberta Mouldoon; his mother has been assassinated.  Garp catches the first flight home.  It is odd to see that a child who was so serious and showed little emotion now has a life filled with nothing but emotion.  This theme of emotion continues when Garp finds out he cannot even go to his mothers funeral.  The reason being that Jenny’s is to be “a feminist funeral”, which infuriates Garp.

            Garp feels it is his right to go to his mothers funeral, so he decides to go, regardless of what kind of funeral it is.  Roberta, however, convinces him to go in disguise.  While at his mothers funeral he is discovered, by his childhood friend’s little sister, Bainbridge ‘Pooh’ Percy.  When she points him out there is an uproar, and the women immediately force him out of the funeral rather violently.  Garp, very angrily, leaves the funeral, only to be greeted on his plane home by the Ellen James.  It is ironic that a man who hates the society built around her could be so supportive of the real person.  Garp essentially adopts Ellen (who is now 19 years old), and invites her to come stay with his family.  However when Garp arrives home he does not find his wife waiting for him, but Dean Bodger, his mothers old friend.  He tells her that Ernie Holms, Helen’s father, had died only days earlier.

            It seems that death is now one of the biggest themes in the novel.  Garp has now experienced the death of his son, his mother, his father-in-law, and his favorite teacher, Mr. Tinch.  Garp’s life seems dismal.