Cider House Rules
The novel, The Cider House Rules, written by John Irving, can be said to be an excellent source of thought-provoking ideas. Some interesting quotations and facts derived from this novel are presented below along with their importance.
Firstly, the name of one of the main characters, Homer Wells, seems to portray the plot of the book. Homer, who is an orphan and is expected to be adopted one day, ends up making the orphanage his home. This may be a reason the author selected the name "Homer" instead of any other name for the character.
"There was the human body, which was so clearly designed to want babies - and then there was the human mind, which was so confused about the matter. Sometimes the mind didn't want the babies, but sometimes the mind was so perverse that it made other people have babies they know they didn't want. For whom was this insisting done? Dr. Larch wondered. For whom did some minds insist that babies, even clearly unwanted ones, must be brought screaming, into the world?"
This passage could be found on page 23 of the novel and it is where Dr. Larch's, one of the main characters in the novel, thoughts are revealed about giving birth to unwanted babies. This passage can be said to be important as it supports women who want to have abortions because they clearly do not wish to take care of the baby. It also reveals the frustration of the character, Dr. Larch, about people who do things like giving birth thoughtlessly, without taking into consideration the future of the baby. The rhetorical question that asks for whom the minds insisted to have unwanted babies is very thought-provoking. It makes one wonder why people give birth to children if they already know that all they plan on doing with the infant is giving it up for adoption. By doing so, all one is doing is running away from their responsibilities and putting the burden on someone's shoulders.
"If pride was a sin, thought Dr. Larch, the greatest sin was moral...
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