Humor In Owen Meany

Beneath the subtle humor so brilliantly intertwined within John Irving’s novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, lies a realistic, coming of age tragedy. Through Owen Meany’s appearance and many of the events in his life, Irving uses humor to portray pivotal and significant events throughout the comical yet tragic life of Owen Meany.
The first, and what will become the most important source of humor found within the novel, is Owen’s basic appearance. As described by Johnny, Owen “…was the color of a gravestone, light was both absorbed and reflected by his skin” (2). He was illustrated as being so small, and so strange with such adult-like features on such a small body, that upon first seeing him, Hester “…didn’t think he was human” (69), and that he “…looked like a gnome plucked from a fire” (69). In addition to Owen’s unfortunate size that often instigated a desire to be held above the heads of classmates, or to merely be touched, was his voice. It was ...