Conceived in a hospital room by the independent, strong-willed Jenny Fields (who makes sure to choose a father who can never interfere with her decisions), T.S. Garp grows up in the placid academic atmosphere of the exclusive New England boy's school where Jenny works. As Garp becomes a man, the film shifts between the events that shape his world and those that shape his mother's. While Garp follows a "normal" path -- marrying, becoming a father, and establishing himself as an author and teacher -- Jenny continues to make extraordinary decisions and allies herself with a very strange group of characters. And through it all, Jenny remains a powerful, inescapable influence on her son.