How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
She had [...] what her mother called a mannish way of walking [...] and her rum and hips were so slender and hard that, from behind, she resembled a young boy. (1.2)
Jenny has been defying gender expectations all her life, but it isn't an active choice on her part—it's just who she is.
Quote #2
She had dropped out of college when she suspected that the chief purpose of her parents' sending her to Wellesley had been to have her [...] mated to some well-bred man. (1.3)
There was a time when people believed girls should only go to college is to meet a husband. These days, lady students make up the majority of college attendees in the U.S. You go, girls.
Quote #3
One day, Jenny Fields thought, she would like to have a baby—just one. But she wanted [...] nothing whatsoever to do with a man. (1.25)
Despite how it may first appear, Jenny has plenty of traditionally feminine qualities—her passion for motherhood chief among them.
Quote #4
In this dirty-minded world, she thought, you are either somebody's wife or somebody's whore [...] If you don't fit in either category, then everyone tries to make you think there is something wrong with you. But, she thought, there is nothing wrong with me. (1.69)
Even Garp falls victim to this dynamic. He sees most women he interacts with as sexual objects, rather than as people with real lives and real struggles.
Quote #5
"I wanted a job and I wanted to live alone," she wrote. "That made me a sexual suspect." (6.3)
It's humorous—and a little depressing—that Jenny's parents assume she's a prostitute because she lives alone. If society says that women are merely sex objects, then women who don't have sex aren't given any value. Sigh.
Quote #6
As for Jenny, she felt only that women—just like men—should at least be able to make conscious decisions about the course of their lives; if that made her a feminist, she said, then she guessed she was one. (7.37)
Unlike her peers, Jenny doesn't particularly resent men—she just resents the things they do. Jenny's brand of feminism isn't intellectualized; it comes from the gut.
Quote #7
"He said I wasn't enough of a woman, that I confused him, sexually—that I was confused sexually!" Roberta cried. "Oh, God, that prick. All he wanted was the novelty of it. He was just showing off for his friends." (12.28)
Roberta is confronted with the complexities of gender more than most. Her unique situation gives her an intimate understanding of how men think because she was once seen as one.
Quote #8
In Roberta's heart of hearts, Garp and Jenny knew, she was more feminine than anyone; but in her body of bodies, she was a highly trained rock. (14.136)
Of course, there's nothing contradictory about this—women can be buff, too. Jeez, we're living in a post-Chyna world, people.
Quote #9
The divorced women from New York allegedly were moving into New Hampshire in droves. Their intentions were to turn New Hampshire women into lesbians. (16.352)
Once Jenny Fields starts a movement, she becomes a victim of good old-fashioned political slander. Feminism or not, politics can get ugly—and stupid—fast.
Quote #10
He felt love for his mother, of course; and now an aching loss. But did he ever feel such devotion to Jenny Fields as the followers among her own sex? (16.418)
It takes him awhile, but Garp finally understands how important his mother is to the feminist community. Before dying, Jenny creates a feeling of sisterhood that many of these women had never experienced before—and it lingers on after Jenny's death.