Garp takes Ellen James into his family

Garp takes Ellen James into his family after discovering that the young woman sitting beside him on a flight is the real Ellen James, not an Ellen Jamesian. Recently orphaned and traveling to meet Jenny Fields, Ellen has arrived too late to meet her correspondent. Garp’s offer of a home answers that loss with an act of care: he recognizes the difference between Ellen and those who claim her name, and accepts her as a person in need of family rather than as a symbol. The decision becomes a direct inheritance of Jenny’s example and, later, the beginning of Ellen’s close life with the Garps.

The Meeting on the Flight

When another passenger leaves the aisle seat beside Garp, a thin young woman sits down without asking. Seeing her reach into her oversized purse, Garp catches her wrist, but finds no weapon: she has a pad of paper and a pencil. He apologizes, then suspects she may be an Ellen Jamesian, the name given to activists associated with the real girl’s silencing. The suspicion is understandable in the context of his recent danger, but the scene turns on how quickly he must revise it.

The woman writes her name: Ellen James. She adds that she is not an Ellen Jamesian. Garp recognizes that she is the child whose story he knows, now grown to nineteen. The distinction is essential to the encounter: the person before him is not an advocate performing an imitation of Ellen’s experience, but Ellen herself, whose identity has been obscured by the movement that adopted her name.

Loss and the Offer of a Home

Ellen explains in writing that she came from Illinois, that both her parents were recently killed in an automobile accident, and that she traveled east to meet Garp’s mother. She had written Jenny a letter and received a warm reply inviting her to stay. Jenny also told her to read Garp’s books. Ellen has thus crossed the distance to meet someone who had already offered welcome, only to arrive after Jenny’s death.

Garp asks whether both her parents were killed and whether she has any other family. Ellen confirms the deaths and indicates that she has no other relatives. Thinking of what Jenny would have done, and knowing that Helen would not object and Roberta would help, Garp tells Ellen, “Well, you have a family now.” He holds her hand as he makes the offer, and recognizes in his own response an echo of Jenny’s instinctive care. Ellen closes her eyes, overwhelmed by the welcome; when she fails to respond to the stewardess’s instruction to fasten her seat belt, Garp fastens it for her. During the short flight to Boston, Ellen continues writing to him.

Jenny’s Example Carried Forward

On the drive north toward Steering, Ellen sleeps in the back seat. The scene gives Garp time to understand the significance of what he has done: he is caring for someone in the way Jenny would have cared for her. He concludes that his mother had the right instincts and that he should try to be more like her. He hopes eventually to understand how this lesson connects with his writing, but the immediate change is practical and personal: he has made room for Ellen in his care.

That realization comes after Jenny’s death, which sharpens the force of the decision. Garp thinks the thought would have pleased her had it come while she was alive. The offer does not undo his loss; it turns the example she left him into a present responsibility. In this way, taking Ellen in becomes more than a gesture of sympathy: it is one of the actions through which Garp understands what Jenny’s values demand of him.

Ellen in the Garp Household

Ellen moves in with the Garps at nineteen. She becomes an older sister to Duncan and a fellow member of the household’s maimed society; the two grow very close. Ellen helps Duncan with his homework, especially because she is skilled at reading and writing, while Duncan introduces her to swimming and photography. Garp builds them a darkroom in the Steering mansion, where they spend hours developing photographs. Their companionship brings together Duncan’s eager talk about lenses and light and Ellen’s wordless responses.

Helen buys them a movie camera, and Ellen and Duncan write and perform a film together. Its story concerns a blind prince whose sight is partly restored when he kisses a young cleaning woman. He regains sight in only one eye because she will allow a kiss on the cheek, not the lips: she is embarrassed because she has lost her tongue. The prince and the young woman marry despite their disabilities and compromises. Told through pantomime and subtitles written by Ellen, the seven-minute film gives the pair a shared form in which writing, performance, and visual expression make communication possible without spoken dialogue.

Ellen also helps Helen care for baby Jenny. She and Duncan become expert babysitters, while Garp takes the child to the wrestling room on Sunday afternoons, believing the mat will let her learn to walk, run, and fall without hurting herself. Helen worries that it may instead give the child a mistaken sense of the ground as a soft surface. Ellen’s place in the family therefore extends beyond Garp’s original offer: she participates in the everyday care of the younger generation and in the household’s practical, sometimes contested, efforts to protect it.

Significance of the Act

The event reverses Garp’s initial assumption. Faced with a woman whose name is associated with political imitation and a recent threat, he first reads her as a possible danger; her written correction reveals that she is the person behind the name. His response then shifts from suspicion to responsibility. The contrast between the real Ellen and the Ellen Jamesians matters because Garp’s welcome is directed toward an individual with her own losses and needs, not toward an abstract cause.

The act also connects Jenny’s earlier invitation with Garp’s later conduct. Ellen had set out to find refuge with Jenny; after Jenny’s death, Garp takes up the welcome himself. The subsequent life Ellen builds with the Garps gives the offer lasting consequences: she becomes Duncan’s close companion, contributes her reading and writing skills, and helps care for the family’s youngest child. Garp’s decision thus carries Jenny’s example forward not through a declaration alone, but through an enduring place for Ellen in the family.