Jenny Fields’s wishes for her remains and funeral

Jenny Fields’s wishes for her remains and funeral are defined by two linked decisions: she wanted her body given to a medical school, and she did not want a funeral. After her death, the family’s effort to honor those wishes separates the fate of her body from the public act of remembering her. For Garp, accepting that distinction becomes part of understanding his mother’s legacy: her care for others continues through the living, not through a conventional burial.

The Wishes

Garp tells Roberta Muldoon that Jenny wanted her body to go to a medical school. When Roberta notes that there should still be some kind of observance, Garp insists that Jenny had never wanted a funeral. He asks Roberta to make sure her wish about the body is carried out, treating it not as an incidental preference but as an instruction that should govern what happens after her death.

These wishes distinguish bodily disposition from commemoration. Jenny’s body is to serve a medical school, while her refusal of a funeral does not prevent those left behind from gathering. Roberta explains that the body has gone where Jenny wanted and that the planned occasion is a memorial service, not a funeral. The distinction allows the family to honor Jenny without claiming that she had authorized a conventional ceremony.

Death and Public Commemoration

Jenny is shot at a public gathering. She has just identified herself to the crowd; cheers, whistles, hoots, and pickup-truck horns surround her speech before a single gunshot ends the moment. In the aftermath, the question of what to call a gathering in her memory becomes inseparable from the wishes she left behind: the public figure has died, but her body is not to be the center of a funeral.

Garp initially resists the memorial, asking how there can be a funeral when he did not authorize one and demanding to know where the body is. Roberta patiently clarifies that the body has been handled according to Jenny’s wishes and that the event is a memorial service. His objection exposes the strain between a son’s response to loss and the public act of remembrance surrounding his mother. Roberta’s explanation does not overturn Jenny’s instructions; it helps Garp see that remembrance need not violate them.

Care as Inheritance

The meaning of the arrangements becomes clearer through Jenny’s established identity as a caregiver. Garp sees her as a nurse throughout her life: she cared for him when he was a child, later became a source of support to women facing difficult choices, and gained national attention after the success of her book. Her example encouraged women to make decisions about how to live, including decisions that others might regard as unpopular. Her wishes about her body and funeral belong to this pattern of making choices for herself rather than submitting to convention.

The care she gave also persists in the family’s response to injury and bereavement. During the family’s recovery at Dog’s Head Harbor, Helen hopes Jenny can nurse Garp while she herself cares for Duncan. Helen spends much of her convalescence reading to him, while Jenny is better able to manage Garp. These scenes place practical care beside Jenny’s later memorial: her legacy is not only a public reputation, but a model of attending to people who need help.

Garp’s Understanding

On the drive north to Steering with Ellen James asleep in his care, Garp recognizes that he is, in his own way, playing nurse. He comes to understand Jenny’s talent as a matter of sound instinct: she had repeatedly done what was right. He hopes eventually to connect that lesson to his writing, but recognizes that the connection will take time. The understanding is not an abstract conclusion about funerals; it arises while he is responsible for another person’s safety and well-being.

The memorial thus becomes part of a larger inheritance. Jenny’s body follows her stated wishes, while the people who loved her carry forward her example through their actions. Garp’s change is not a claim that grief has been resolved. Rather, he begins to understand how caring for another person can transmit what mattered in his mother’s life, even when the ordinary rituals of burial have been set aside.