Post #4

Book: The Fourth Hand by John Irving
Pages: 120 - 182
In the recent turn of events, the main character, Patrick Wallingford gained a soul by loving widow Doris Clausen and her not loving him back. There's a dramatic change of character- he's no longer a ladies' man, he's far more sympathetic to the world, and in general, he's a much more decent human being.

As far as symbolism goes, I can't say I'm really good at picking it out unless if it's throw into my face. So no, I can't say I have noticed any symbolism in John Irving's works. Chances are, he is using a character or a character trait to symbolise something, but I'm not good at picking those out. He does use a lot of foreshadowing, leading the reader to know what will happen (like how he stated right off how a man would lose his hand) but keeping it ineresting enough to hold the reader's attention.

A big theme of Irving's is the view on sex from the different genders. It'd be a good paper topic. The thesis would probably be: In all of his books, John Irving's explicitly uses sex as a way to eccentuate the differences between genders.
Something like that, maybe.