10 Deeply Unusual And Unconventional Literary Heroes

4. Owen Meany

First Appearance: A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving The term hero can be thrown around a lot but there isn't a title more suitable for "God's instrument" in a John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. That hero, is of course, the one, the only, Owen Meany. Owen is one of the most unusual characters ever created. To start off, there is his size. He is tiny. Not exactly a dwarf or someone with a disease that makes him shorter. Owen is just plain old small, he was small as a boy and as he grows into an adult he is still small. While the size is never given specifically, he's probably only 4 feet tall, but because of his job working in his father's stone quarry, he is muscular. Beyond just his physical description is Owen's voice. It is incredibly high pitched and anytime Owen speaks IT IS ALWAYS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. What's interesting is that Owen is one of the smartest characters to ever grace the pages of a book. So even if he has an annoying voice, he often has wise and insightful things to say, even when he's a young boy. Owen has one major personality flaw and that is how stubborn is. At times it's frustrating, but he's stubborn because he knows that he's God's instrument, so why would he budge on something he KNOWS for sure? To explain what makes him a hero would spoil the ending. But by the end Owen is a hero in every sense of the word. As unusual as he is.