![]() Their affair pointedly recalls the affair between protagonist Hester Prynne and the minister Arthur Dimmesdale in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, also set in a small, conservative New England town. John discovers near the end of the book that his biological father is Reverend Lewis Merrill, his mother’s pastor. Tabitha initially seems like an empowered character, because she never feels compelled to apologize or atone for her affair and her pregnancy. However, her link to the adulterous protagonist of The Scarlet Letter reveals Irving’s reliance on stereotype. John’s mother, Tabitha, is on the one hand a liberated woman who refuses to be shamed for the supposed transgression of conceiving a child out of wedlock. ![]() While the novel’s main characters, John Wheelwright and Owen Meany, admire a small handful of sharp and complex women, the book’s broader treatment of its female characters is negative and steeped in stereotype. Through its frequent references to literary works such as The Scarlet Letter that grapple with gender (and the fact that A Prayer for Owen Meany is itself a literary work), the book highlights the role literature plays in shaping and perpetuating gender stereotypes. ![]() John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany is a novel that mixes progressive statements about women’s intelligence and fortitude with a relentless objectification and critique of women’s bodies. ![]()
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