In A Prayer for Owen Meany John Ivring uses several symbols to explore the themes of fate and divine control. Ivring describes several objects and characters as being armless to represent a sacrifice made by a divine influence. Owen Meany in particular is often described as being above the ground to represent what he sees as his position as God’s instrument.
Owen is first described as being held in the air when attending Sunday school(p 2). Later in the book John repeatedly picks up Owen and raises him to a basketball hoop so he can practice a slam dunk that becomes known as “the shot.” Before Owen’s death he is once again lifted to a high window using the shot in order to protect a group of children below (p 612). Finally Owen floats above the pine trees after his death (p 615).
In part, Owen’s repeated flight is practical. Practicing the shot gave Owen and John the ability to place the grenade on the windows. However, Owen’s flight, particularly after his death also alludes that Owen is closer to the heavens and reinforces his role as “God’s instrument (p 87)”. After Owen’s death, John points out that “…There were forces that contributed to our illusion of Owen’s weightlessness; they were forces that we failed to believe in-and they were also lifting up Owen Meany, taking him out of our hands. (p 617)” This suggests that Owen was being lifted be divine forces from childhood until they lifted him above the palm trees.
Owen was confident throughout the novel throughout the novel that nothing happens by accident and that he was fated to die on July 8, 1968(p 607). Owen feels his death is a part of God’s plan and does not attempt to change his fate. This ties into the theme of divine control. He was carried by spiritual beings through his life to fulfill his role in saving the children.
In A Prayer for Owen Meany many characters seem to suffer amputations. The Indian chief Watahantowet draws an armless totem when he sells his land(p 8). Owen amputates the stuffed armadillo’s claws to represent his guilt and grief after accidentally killing Tabitha Wheelwright (p 86). The Meanys’ nativity set features a one-handed Joseph and a three-legged cow (p 183). Tabitha’s dressmaker’s dummy is armless until Owen gives it the arms he removed from a statue of Mary Magdalene (p 553), one of which is later separated again from the dummy (p 555).
The main theme of A Prayer for Owen Meany is religious faith -- specifically, the relationship between faith and doubt in a world in which there is no obvious evidence for the existence of God. John writes on the first page of the book that Owen Meany is the reason that he is a Christian, and ensuing story is presented as an explanation of the reason why. Though the plot of the novel is quite complicated, the explanation for Owen's effect on Johnny's faith is extremely simple; Owen's life is a miracle -- he has supernatural visions and dreams, he believes that he acts as God's instrument, and he has divine foresight of his own death -- and offers miraculous and almost undeniable evidence of God's existence. The basic thematic shape of the novel is that of a tension being lifted, rather than a tension being resolved; Johnny struggles throughout the book to resolve his religious faith with his skepticism and doubt, but at the novel's end he is not required to make a choice between the two extremes: Owen's miraculous death obviates the need to make a choice, because it offers evidence that banishes doubt. Yet Johnny remains troubled, because Owen's sacrificial death (he dies to save the lives of a group of Vietnamese children) seems painfully unfair. Johnny is left with the problem of accepting God's will. In the end, he invests more faith in Owen himself than he invests in God -- he receives two visitations from Owen beyond the grave -- and he concludes the novel by making Owen something of a Prince of Peace, asking God to allow Owen's resurrection and return to Earth.
Again Owen is symbolically presented as being more than human. The armless motif is symbolizes Owen’s belied that he is “God’s Instrument” and that the choices he makes are that of God. In his belief that “God has taken my hands”, represented by armless figures, he is able to justify and overcome his actions that killed John’s mother; similarly to Pi, Owen projects unwanted events onto another in order to move on. In both Life of Pi and A Prayer for Owen Meany, symbols are used to bring attention to themes centered on religious faith and the importance of it in surviving psychological and physical hurdles.
Owen convinced himself that the reason he was used to kill John’s mom is because he is an “instrument of God” and that God had taken away Owen’s hands because he is helplessly under the control of destiny. Tabitha Wheelwright died for a reason, and through God, it was predestined to happen by Ow...
...n God but knowing he exists to the point of putting love, faith and destiny in one power. Owen marked his place within the hearts of those who surrounded him with his teachings, strong words of advice and encouragement.
In her short story, Good Country People, Flannery O’Connor employs all the elements of humor, irony and, paradox intermingled within the system of Christian belief in evil and redemption. This is no more evident than in the character of Joy, the daughter, who had lost a leg in a hunting accident at the age of 12 and who now has a wooden leg in his place. Throughout the story, it becomes increasingly clear that Joy’s physical affliction is closely paralleled by a spiritual one as well. As the narrative unfolds, the great lengths Joy has gone to recreate her inner self, her soul, are revealed in painstaking detail. It appears she has succeeded in fashioning her own soul into a spirit that is as hard and unyielding as the prosthesis that now takes the place of her missing naturally soft and flexible appendage.
The Venus de Milo is a beautiful piece of artwork that lacks arms, but while some characters are seen as armless in A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving, they are not exactly a piece of art. The symbolism of armlessness presents itself throughout the novel as if painting a picture. The picture is for the reader to find out. Armlessness in the novel is used to symbolize strength within weakness.
Overall Wilfred Owen shows that there is no triumph in war, he does this by using the dying soldier as an example. His main point is that the old saying: “Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori” is a lie.
Owen's poems the irony between the truth of what happens at war and the lie that was
Owen expands on the shelling in lines 3 and 4, noting, “Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle/ can patter out their hasty orisons” (Lines 3 and 4). Owen repeats “only” to build momentum and to truly explain the sounds of the guns. He uses alliteration in “rifles’ rapid rattle” and onomatopoeia in “stuttering” and “rattle” to imitate the harsh and repetitive sounds of rifles. The alliteration creates a sense of the rapidity and frequency of the firing. Owen again personifies the guns, this time by using “stuttering” like the stutter of people. To him, the guns represent people and the people appear as animals. He compares the shelling to the guns rattling out prayers. Ironically, these prayers do not help the soldiers; they wound or kill
In O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners she says the following: “From my own experience in trying to make stories ‘work,’ I have discovered that what is needed is an action that is totally unexpected, yet totally believable … and frequently it is an action in which the devil has been the unwilling instrument of grace.” O’Connor wants to represent the action of God’s grace in the world, a world that is “enemy territory,” and with characters who repel His grace, but eventually surrender to it; this is precisely what Asbury does in the “Enduring Chill” (O’Reilly). Overall, I hold the belief that God can move us to Him, even using our “defective wills.”
... the reader using the familiar and comforting phrase and then immediately hammering home the gruesome truths of the conflict. By creating this intentional disparity, Owen’s aim of shocking the reader into believing and accepting his viewpoint is very much closer to being achieved.
...ast three aspects of the creative process in his work. First, poetry is inherently an act of language mechanics, involving attention to rhythm and esthetics. Secondly, the connotative choices involved in diction are significant, and can greatly affect the overall impact of a poem in powerful ways. Finally, Owen seems to have specifically attempted to broaden the potential audience of "Strange Meeting" by substituting words and phrases with less specific references.
...ways. It can be literal and mean that what has happened can't be fixed - soldiers are dead or the injuries will stay with the wounded forever. It can also mean that the survivors will never forget what they saw. Owen then reminds us that these soldiers are innocent and this war is corrupting them when it shouldn't be and this creates the feeling of injustice.
Owen was able to evoke emotions through the use of imagery, as well as the usages of literary devices. This poet tends to use a lot of similes, metaphors and personification to express his image of the death and destruction of the war. ‘The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.’ The use of personification gives the reader a clear feeling of what Owen is trying to express. Furthermore, sense of demonic force is also shown about torture for the soldiers. . Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle’- personification, alliteration and onomatopoeia combine as methods to make war seen more brutal, violent and cruel. His uses of describing ...
In Owen’s poem we see the use of defamiliarization, the poem is about death war and it makes us see this in a different perspective. In the opening line of the poem the soldiers are referred to as cattle, that they don’t get the bells for the church when they die. Using this simile Owen makes us think about the soldiers as cattle being slaughtered, something that is done day in day out and usually without much compassion, it makes us perceive the soldiers as cattle being put forward for slaughter when they go to war. This is making strange the idea of soldiers going to war, it pushes us out of our comfort zone to really think about what soldiers have to go through when they die at war.