People who are happy perceive the world as safer, make decisions more easily, rate job applicants more favorably, and report greater satisfaction with their whole lives. When your mood is gloomy, life as a whole seems depressing. Let your mood brighten, and suddenly your relationships, your self-image, and your hopes for the future all seem more promising. In John Updike's novel, rabbit, run, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is a man who wants constant change. He hasn't found his happiness so he runs away from what he knows as life to something new, in ho

It was his mind that was telling him to run, and it was his body that was leading him away. He wasn't the typical "family man" and he wasn't going to be. Too many things were portrayed during the fifties and it was what you paid attention to that geared your life. The time period said that the father was to be the one who would hold the job and run the family at the same time. But for Rabbit, he couldn't be in twenty places at once. How was he to raise a family when he had to bring in the money? Maybe that is why his wife went down hill. Janice just couldn't handle all of the priorities of a housewife, and Rabbit couldn't handle the responsibilities of a husband. "According to the popular stereotype, families in the suburbs were child-centered and female dominated. Because of the demands of commuting, a father had little time to spend with his family. Being so preoccupied with his role as a breadwinner, he was unable to be the paternal authority and caring father to his children." (Mintz, 184). Rabbit is supposed to be giving life to his family as well as financial support. But he can't give life when he doesn't even know where he wants his life to go.

It's not just in the 1950's that one wants to find happiness through marriage and through themselves. It's a normal feeling to have for anyone at anytime. Everyone has values, they were just geared towards different things in the fifties. For Rabbit, his values were sex, being in control, having someone in his life that understood him, and finding himself and his true meaning in life. "What is consequent therefore is the divorce of man from his values, the liberation of the self from the Super-Ego of society. The only hip morality is to do what one feels wherever and whenever it is possible." (Mailer, 100). This would explain why Rabbit keeps on running from situations instead of dealing with them as they happen. He is the hipster of the fifties with no where to go but backwards or forwards, Ruth or Janice. Marry one and sleep with the other. Propose to Ruth because it's an escape route; stay with Janice because it's what he knows. "Whether you are a man or a woman, the family is the unit to which you must genuinely belong, the family is the center of your living. If it isn't, you've gone far astray." (Mintz, 180). Marriage is a game for Rabbit, and this makes him loose his ideal vision of being the "family man." He fears what commitment could bring him, and where it would lead him.

But as time passed on in Rabbit's race to find happiness, he began to realize that Janice was an important part in his life because they created two beautiful children. He knew that he was suppose to be there for her and that eventually they could be happy again. He longed to touch her and be with her sexually and this ended up driving her to drink again. "She becomes a liability that painfully weights the knot below his chest. This is the wild woman he must steer with care down a lifelong path, away from Monday morning." (Updike, 244) Although he goes back to Janice, he fails to help and understand her. He becomes blamed for the death of their child, and he is shunned in everyone's eyes, including his own mother. He thought that by returning home to Janice he could fix things and start a new job and they would become the happy family that he always longed to have. But life isn't always meant to flow along that course of happiness, and Rabbit begins to hate himself. "Hate suits him better than forgiveness. Immersed in hate he doesn't have to do anything; he can be paralyzed, the rigidity of hatred makes a kind of shelter for him" (Updike, 245). Still looking for a way out, he runs again to escape this hatred and to get away from all the fingers pointing to him. If only he was a better father and husband, maybe this hatred wouldn't be burning a hole through his body and mind.

pes that he can find his answer. For some people happiness is a walk in the woods

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3376
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)