A Prayer for Owen Meany By John Irving

A Prayer for Owen Meany is a novel that contains death, gossip, secrets, religeon, Pity, taunting, difficulty, love, wisdom, mean beings, and forgiveness. In the firs chapter I ask myself is Johnny really living a godly life?He doesn't know his bible very well,he changes churches often, and further int he book he is in a dorm room snooping around looking at inappropiate sex magazines and dirty pictures. From the beginning of this book the narrarator, Johnny Wheelwright, introduces us to future events such as his mother's death. He also lets his readers know his bestfriend, Owen Meany, led him to believe in Christ. For some reason, that we do not know yet, is how and why he came to believe in Christ and how was Owen Meany able to lead him to believe. Johnny's mother died when he was 11. This unfortunate accident occurred at a baseball game. Owen was up to bat, and for some reason the coach tld him to bat away, when usually he does not tell him that. Well, to his surprise he hit the ball and it hit Tabitha, Johnney's mother. This terrible accident, however, did not affect the friendship of the boys. In chapter 3, Owen believes he sees an angel in Tabby's room. When he went back into the room to check if it was still there it was gone. On page 102, it states, "In Owen's opinion, he had INTERRUPTED AN ANGEL, he had DISURBED AN ANGEL AT WORK, he had UPSET THE SCHEME OF THINGS. I realize now that he never thought her saw a guardian angel; he was quite convinced, especially after THAT FATED BASEBALL, that he had interupted the Angel of Death." The text goes on to say that Owen had to repay the price of kiling Tabitha with the baseball. On page 125, Tabby invites Owen to come with her after the wedding, so she could drop him off at home. When this occurs she gets out the car so Owen could slide in, then a hailstone ricocheted off the car and smacked her between the eyes. That would have never occured if Owen didn't have to go with them to drop him at home. Just like if she didn't go to their baseball game she wouldn't have died that day and both of these days involved Owen Meany. We realize that there is something special and different about Owen; we don't know what it is yet but there are hints of that he differentiates such as his voice, him seeing an angel and then having the responsiblity to kill Tabitha.
It was unfortuante that Johnny didn't spend a Christmas in Sawyer Depot after his mother's death. His mother's absence would be too painful for the family to deal with