The Garps and Fletchers' affair is a six-month entanglement among T. S. Garp, Helen Holm, Harrison Fletcher, and Alice Fletcher, set in motion by Harrison’s involvement with Alice, his student. What begins as Helen’s furious attempt to confront her husband becomes a reciprocal arrangement in which Garp and Alice develop a private intimacy of their own. The episode’s defining contradiction is that all four participate, but not on equal emotional terms: Helen ends the arrangement, while Garp is already dreading the loss of Alice.

Background and the Confrontation

The immediate conflict is Harrison’s description of Alice as special, which Garp points out to Helen. Helen answers with anger at men who take care of one woman while pursuing another, and announces that she will show Harrison what special means. Her response turns a dispute over his treatment of Alice into a confrontation over the insult to both wives: she objects not simply to the affair, but to Harrison’s flattering language for his student and the injury it does to their marriage and to Garp.

One evening, after Garp has cooked an elaborate dinner of Paprika Chicken and spätzle, Helen proposes that she and Harrison do the dishes while Garp takes Alice home. Garp’s surprise at the instruction—he asks whether Helen means immediately—shows how abruptly the evening changes direction. Helen tells Alice to show Harrison her novel and everything she wants, while she intends to make Harrison understand what an asshole he is. Harrison tries to recast the gathering as a friendly arrangement in which everyone wants to remain friends; Helen rejects that smoothing-over, directly accusing him of insulting both her and his wife.

Alice and Garp

Helen insists that Garp go with Alice and let Alice drive her own baby-sitter home. Harrison protests, but Alice herself answers him: she tells him to shut up, takes Garp’s hand, and stands. The gesture places Alice beside Garp rather than under Harrison’s authority. Garp is speechless as they leave; when he offers to take her home, Alice says she can drive, and he urges her to get back fast.

At home, Alice makes a request that draws their closeness into her work. Because she cannot speak her own words, she asks Garp to read the first chapter of her novel aloud; he hears that its writing is fluent and careful, and that the sentences sound beautiful in his voice. The scene gives Alice’s authorship a presence independent of her speech impairment: Garp is not merely comforting her, but responding to the craft of the writing itself. When he tells her she has a lovely voice, she cries. They then make love, and Garp acknowledges that, despite what people assume about such arrangements, the moment was special. Alice later asks whether it was, and he says yes.

The Four-Person Arrangement and Its End

Garp recognizes that his defense of Alice’s talent has become personal. He says that Harrison does not appreciate how talented she is, and Helen remarks that this is the last time she will try to save anyone’s marriage except her own. The four-person arrangement lasts for six months while Helen lets Harrison down gently. During that period Garp sees as much of Alice as he can, even as he tries to warn her that their shared situation cannot last. He also tries to prepare himself for giving her up, a prospect he dreads.

The relationship does not carry the same meaning for all four. Garp tells Alice that it cannot continue and will have to stop soon; she points out that it has not stopped yet. He also warns Harrison while they play squash. Harrison acknowledges that the affair cannot last, but takes pleasure in the present. Alice presses Garp to confirm that it is special, and his answer is affirmative, though the narration qualifies his certainty: he thinks he loves her. That qualification leaves the attachment real but not fully settled, even as Garp’s fear of losing her has become plain.

Helen, who enjoys the arrangement least, suffers it most. When she finally ends it, her visible euphoria contrasts with the gloom of the other three. Their resentment is sharpened by the disparity: Helen appears uplifted just as Garp, Harrison, and Alice are cast into sadness. Without a formal agreement, the couples observe a six-month moratorium on seeing one another except by chance, extending the separation beyond Helen’s decision to end the affair.

Aftermath and Significance

The moratorium proves difficult to maintain. Helen and Harrison run into each other in the English Department, while Garp encounters Alice in a supermarket. Alice deliberately crashes her shopping cart into his. The collision jars little Walt among the produce and juice cans, and alarms Alice’s daughter as well. The encounter turns an attempt at accidental contact into a physical interruption of ordinary family space: the attachment has not vanished, but its reappearance now affects the children around them.

Alice explains that she needed some contact. Later, she phones the Garps very late, after Garp and Helen have gone to bed, and asks Helen whether Harrison is there. The question reaches across the old arrangement through Helen rather than Garp, showing that the four-person entanglement still shapes their communication after its formal end. The episode thus moves from Helen’s attempt to expose and punish Harrison’s behavior to an intimacy that none of the participants can simply dismiss. Its resolution is not reconciliation among all four, but a severance chosen by Helen and resisted in feeling by the others.