As a species, humans fear death not only their own mortality but also that of their loved ones. Philosophers pondered for many years on what death truly contained and psychologist have seen that death is one of humanity's greatest fears yet this fear is gone by the time a person is dying. In the novel, The World According to Garp, by John Irving, the main character and his family come to the realization that death is unavoidable and one must come to terms with it in order to truly live. T.S. Garp, only son to Jenny Fields, marries his childhood friend Helen . Together Helen and Garp face the joys and horrors of parenthood. Both Jenny and her son become writers, both publish under John Wolf who becomes a close family friend to the family.…show more content… The idea of death is first seeing through Garp’s father who Garp never know for he died before his birth. Garp was born into very strange circumstances; his mother wanted a child but not a husband so she raped a dying ex-solider that was in care at the hospital she worked at. The two then moved into Steering a school for boys where Jenny continued her work as a nurse and Garp grew up. The absence of his father and Garp’s personality made him believe that “…he would die young. ‘ Like my father, ’Garp wrote, ‘I believe I have a knack for brevity. I'm a one-shot man’” (Irving 33). Although he jokes about death, Garp only tries to hide himself from his own fear; this will only grows until the fear of death is his sole focus and drive in life. Jenny Fields becomes a prominent public figure of the feminist movement because of this she receives hate mail. After Garp finds out that, his mother is receiving these letters “He suddenly saw Jenny as a potential victim,