Rabbit run
John Updike's Rabbit, Run, originally published in 1960, has excited successive generations of readers and critics alike. The novel follows the retirement of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom from the certainty and order of the high school basketball court to the uncertainty and responsibility of adulthood. The narrative begins with Harry walking out on his pregnant wife, Janice, and infant son, Nelson. He feels trapped, "glued in with a lot of busted toys and empty glasses and television going and meals late and no way of getting out" (100). He drives south looking for an ideal life, but is drawn back by an unchanging landscape, familiar songs on the radio, and finally thoughts of Janice. He returns to Pennsylvania, but not to his wife. He visits his old coach and mentor, Tothero, who introduces him to a local prostitute, Ruth. Rabbit moves in with her, but he is drawn back to his wife, partially through the meddling of the Episcopalian minister, Jack Eccles, when their child is born. !Rabbit senses a new beginning and stays with Janice until his unwarranted sexual advances are spurned; he flees again. In despair because of Rabbit's second flight, Janice resumes drinking and accidently drowns the newborn Rebecca in the bathtub. Rabbit re
han as a means to deconstruct human experience. I will interpret the work through an epistemic lens to reveal Updike to be essentially a spiritually affirming author. To reveal Updike as such, I will dwell in the "empty" space that lies between the opposing images he presents; it is in this area that Updike's epistemology is found. Updike credits Rabbit, Run with a "Yes, but" quality that discounts any notion that there may be a persuasive leader (knower) of the inferior (ignorant). Kerry Ahearn, in his discussion of family and adultery, reiterates that "every truth is nevertheless truth only to a certain degree; when it goes beyond, the counterpoint appears, and it becomes untruth" (67). This quality of never holding steadfast to a position has led critics and readers to charge Updike's work with denying any form of positive existence, a charge that I find fallacious. Furthermore, I will also consult the theory of the narrative paradigm proposed by Walter R. Fisher in his essay, "Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm: The Case of Public Moral Argument," to reveal Updike's Rabbit, Run as a spiritually affirming work. The two fundamental principles that underscore the narrative paradigm are that literature has cognitive as well as aesthetic
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Approximate Word count = 847
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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