The Cider House Rules, more than

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nany other of Irving's novels, there is a sharp demarcation between the complex, realistic — if, as usual, eccentric — characters and the purely stereotypical ones. The two central characters, Wilbur Larch, the doctor, and Homer Wells, the orphan, complement and yet contrast with each other. Both wish to "be of use," and because several attempts to place Homer in adoptive homes fail and he lives at the orphanage until he is eighteen, he assists Dr.

Larch often enough to become a skilled obstetrician and ultimately returns to take over St. Cloud's, albeit under a false name and with forged medical credentials. Yet until confronted with a pregnancy resulting from father-daughter incest, Homer refuses to perform an abortion; as an orphan, he is painfully aware that his own existence is marginal. Wilbur Larch is a latent homosexual whose only sensual pleasure...