The World According To Garp

As the secondary protagonist, Helen could easily fall into a “sidekick” role, but Irving does an admirable job of creating a fully fleshed-out female character who refuses to compromise herself for her husband’s sake.

Helen fears appearing vulnerable and often has to stay strong when Garp is allowed to falter. Helen’s mother abandoned her and her father, Ernie, when Helen was a child. Helen adores her father and works hard to take care of him. When she first glimpses Jenny Fields, she is enamored of the woman whose literary reputation precedes her not only for her extensive book collection but also because Jenny bears a great resemblance to her mother. After her initial display of emotion, Helen keeps Jenny and Garp more at bay, carefully allotting how much time and emotion she devotes to them. She is cool in her initial romantic relationship with Garp, pragmatically reminding him that she can be dating other boys if he is also not prioritizing her. She does not feel pressured to give false praise and offers sincere, heartfelt criticism rather than worrying about hurting Garp’s feelings. Helen cares more about making Garp a better writer than she does about protecting his feelings, one of the traits that motivates him to marry her.

Helen is unapologetic in her commitment to nontraditional divisions of labor in her home. She knows that she is smarter and more driven than Garp and eagerly embraces the opportunity to be the breadwinner while he stays home and performs caregiving duties when he is not writing. Helen is confident enough not to feel guilty that her husband bears more of the childcare than she does. As a successful English professor, she throws herself into her career and uses her vast literary knowledge to carve out a scholarly legacy.

Helen’s loyalty is unapologetically conditional. She turns down a job offer to teach at Steering because they did not allow girls to attend when she was a child. She is unfaithful to her husband after he has cheated on her several times. Even as a teenager, she accepted that Garp’s tendencies toward lust would push him toward other women; rather than approaching this situation as a doormat, she coolly maintained that he would always return to her because he would realize that she was superior. It is only after Garp cheats on her with many women, including their babysitters, that she decides to cheat on him. Helen is unafraid of exposing the double standards within her marriage. 

Jenny is the first character introduced, and the focus on her early life initially suggests that she is the protagonist. After a few chapters, she becomes a side character, and her son occupies the primary focus.

Jenny occupies a state of moral ambiguity. Admirably determined to retain her independence, she decides to achieve this by any means necessary. She decides that it is acceptable for her to rape a nearly brain-dead soldier who cannot consent, justifying for herself his supposed enjoyment of the act. After this, she leads an asexual and aromantic life, establishing herself as a moral authority because she does not succumb to lust like those around her. It is implied that wrestling coach Ernie Holm is open to pursuing a romantic relationship with her, but she is content to remain friends. She views sexuality in a detached way, interviewing sex workers in Vienna with the frank, objective interest of an anthropologist. Jenny asserts that a woman will inevitably be viewed as a wife or a “whore”; she wants to be viewed as neither and considers her aggressive sexual act as an appropriate means of freeing herself from this binary.

Jenny’s frank manner is very matter-of-fact and occasionally off-putting to other people who find her odd, but she does not care. During her first nursing job, her preoccupation with motherhood leads her to be ostracized by women and inappropriately propositioned by men. Her coworkers and employers at Steering School view her as efficient and dependable; anyone who inquires into her private life or the identity of her son’s father is immediately shut down.

Jenny is reluctant to claim a feminist label and initially does not want to identify with the movement. Despite maintaining the simple conviction that women should be able to make decisions about their lives (the core tenet of feminism), she finds the feminist movement too radical. She identifies as a feminist by default only after recognizing that the label totally aligns with her independent beliefs. However, after she becomes famous, she is happy to lend her name to causes she believes in (such as a candidate in the New Hampshire gubernatorial race).

She is a devoted caretaker, enjoying a long career as a nurse before retiring to focus on opening her home to battered women and women seeking independence. Though she is not an overly affectionate mother, she does care deeply for her son and his family, offering financial and caregiving support whenever Garp and Helen need it.