Feminism, Ellen James, and The World According to Garp
"I begin with an admission: Regardless of all political and economic theories, treating of various fundamental groups within the human race, regardless of class and race distinctions, regardless of all artificial boundary lines between woman's and man's rights, I hold their is a point may meet and grow into one perfect whole" wrote Emma Goldman in "The Tragedy of the Woman's Emancipation". Goldman's powerful words summed up the missed part of the vision of Irving's picture of activists in "The World According to Garp" the feminists of Irving's world were not looking for harmony between the sexes, and therefore can not generalize by calling themselves feminists.
In The World According to Garp, by John Irving, Jenny is, to the fictional movement of Garp, a more contemporary version of Alice Paul, the leader of the National Woman's party. …