Rabbit, Run

Rabbit, Run is a 1960 novel by John Updike. The novel depicts five months in the life of a 26 yea! old fo!me! hi"h school basketball playe! named #a!!y $Rabbit$ %n"st!om, and his attempts to escape the const!aints of his life. &t spa'ned seve!al se(uels, includin" Rabbit Redu), Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest, as 'ell as a !elated 2001 novella, Rabbit Plot summary #a!!y *Rabbit* %n"st!om is 26, has a +ob sellin" a kitchen "ad"et named ,a"i-eele!, and is ma!!ied to Janice, a fo!me! sales"i!l at the sto!e 'he!e he 'o!ked. They have a t'o yea! old son named .elson, and live in ,ount Jud"e, a subu!b of /!e'e!, -ennsylvania. #e believes that his ma!!ia"e is co!!upt and somethin" is missin" f!om his life0 #avin" been a basketball sta! in hi"h school, #a!!y finds his middle class family life unsatisfyin". 1n the spu! of the moment, he decides to leave his family and d!ive south in an attempt to *escape*. #o'eve!, afte! "ettin" lost, he !etu!ns to his home to'n. .ot 'antin" to !etu!n to his family, he instead visits his old basketball coach, ,a!ty Tothe!o. That ni"ht, #a!!y has dinne! 'ith Tothe!o and t'o "i!ls, one of 'hom, Ruth 2eona!d, is a pa!t time p!ostitute. #a!!y and Ruth be"in a t'o month affai! and he soon moves into he! apa!tment. 3u!in" this time, Janice moves back into he! pa!ents$ house and the local 4piscopal p!iest, Jack 4ccles, bef!iends #a!!y in a futile attempt to "et him to !econcile 'ith his 'ife. .onetheless, #a!!y !emains 'ith Ruth until the ni"ht he lea!ns that she had a flin" 'ith his hi"h school nemesis, Ronnie #a!!ison. 4n!a"ed, #a!!y coe!ces Ruth into pe!fo!min" fellatio on him. The same ni"ht, #a!!y lea!ns that Janice is in labo!, and he leaves Ruth to visit his 'ife at the hospital. Reunited 'ith Janice, #a!!y !etu!ns home 'ith he! and thei! dau"hte!, named Rebecca June. #a!!y attends chu!ch one mo!nin" and, afte! 'alkin" the ministe!$s 'ife 2ucy home, inte!p!ets he! invitation to come in fo! a coffee as a se)ual advance. 5hen he declines the invitation fo! coffee, statin" that he has a 'ife, she an"!ily slams the doo! on him. #a!!y !etu!ns to his apa!tment, and, happy about the bi!th of his dau"hte!, t!ies to !econcile 'ith Janice. #e encou!a"es he! to have a 'hiskey, then, mis!eadin" he! mood, p!essu!es he! to have se) in spite of he! postnatal condition. 5hen she !efuses and accuses him of t!eatin" he! like a p!ostitute, #a!!y leaves, yet a"ain, in an attempt to !esume his !elationship 'ith Ruth. 6indin" he! apa!tment empty, he spends the ni"ht at a hotel. The ne)t mo!nin", still dist!au"ht at #a!!y$s ne' depa!tu!e, Janice "ets d!unk and accidentally d!o'ns Rebecca June in the bath tub. The othe! main cha!acte!s in the book e)cept #a!!y soon lea!n of the accident and "athe! at Janice$s pa!ents$ home. 2ate! in the day, una'a!e of 'hat has happened, #a!!y calls Reve!end 4ccles to see ho' his !etu!n home 'ould be !eceived. Reve!end 4ccles sha!es the ne's of his dau"hte!$s death, and #a!!y !etu!ns home immediately, althou"h in a some'hat aloof 'ay. Tothe!o late! visits #a!!y and su""ests that the thin" he is lookin" fo! p!obably does not e)ist. %t Rebecca June$s fune!al, #a!!y$s inte!nal and e)te!nal conflicts !esult in a sudden p!oclamation of his innocence in the baby$s death. #e then !uns f!om the "!aveya!d, pu!sued by Jack 4ccles, until he becomes lost. #a!!y !etu!ns to Ruth and lea!ns that she is p!e"nant by him. Thou"h #a!!y is !elieved to discove! she has not had an abo!tion, he is un'illin" to divo!ce Janice. #a!!y abandons Ruth,

still missin" the feelin" he has attempted to "!asp du!in" the cou!se of the novel7 his fate is unce!tain as the novel concludes.

Characters
#a!!y %n"st!om a.k.a. Rabbit, a 26 yea! old man. ,a!!ied to Janice %n"st!om. #e 'as a basketball sta! in hi"h school and be"ins the novel as a kitchen "ad"et salesman. ,i!iam %n"st!om a.k.a. ,im, Rabbit$s 19 yea! old siste!. ,!. %n"st!om Rabbit$s fathe!. ,!s. %n"st!om Rabbit$s mothe!. Janice %n"st!om Rabbit$s 'ife. .elson %n"st!om #a!!y and Janice$s 2 yea! old son. Rebecca June %n"st!om #a!!y and Janice$s infant dau"hte!. ,!. 8p!in"e! Janice$s fathe!. % used ca! deale!. ,!s. 8p!in"e! Janice$s mothe!. 8he is ha!shly c!itical of #a!!y 'hen he leaves Janice. Jack 4ccles a youn" 4piscopal p!iest. #e t!ies to mend #a!!y and Janice$s b!oken ma!!ia"e. 2ucy 4ccles Jack 4ccles$s 'ife. 8he blames the lack of love in he! ma!!ia"e 'ith Jack on his +ob takin" up too much of his time. 6!it9 :!uppenbach the %n"st!oms$ 2uthe!an ministe!. #e tells Jack 4ccles that #a!!y and Janice a!e best left to themselves. Ruth 2eona!d Rabbit$s mist!ess;1< 'ith 'hom he lives fo! th!ee months. 8he is a fo!me! p!ostitute;2< and lives alone in an apa!tment fo! t'o people. 8he is 'ei"ht conscious. ,a!"a!et :osko a f!iend of Ruth$s. -!obably also a p!ostitute. 8he is contemptuous of Tothe!o. ,!s. 8mith a 'ido' 'hose "a!den Rabbit looks afte! 'hile a'ay f!om his 'ife. 8he is => yea!s old. ,a!ty Tothe!o Rabbit$s fo!me! basketball coach. #e 'as popula! in hi"h school but "ot dismissed f!om his +ob due to a $scandal$. #e cheats on his 'ife but "ives ma!ital advice to #a!!y. %fte! suffe!in" t'o st!okes, he becomes disabled. Ronnie #a!!ison 1ne of Rabbit$s fo!me! basketball team mates. #e has slept 'ith ,a!"a!et :osko and Ruth 2eona!d.

Rabbit and Angstrom

% !abbit is *a pe!son likened to a !abbit, typically in bein" timid o! ineffectual7 a poo! o! novice playe!*;>< and *a !unne! 'ho intentionally sets a fast pace fo! a teammate du!in" a lon" distance !ace.*;?< /esides its othe! associations, Updike may have chosen the name Rabbit fo! his cha!acte! fo! its echo of 8inclai! 2e'is$s /abbitt, 'hose main theme *focuses on the po'e! of confo!mity, and the vacuity of middle class %me!ican life.* This is unlikely, ho'eve!, as Updike claims not to have !ead 2e'is$s novel until afte! he '!ote Rabbit at Rest.;@< Updike said in inte!vie's that the name %n"st!om 'as inspi!ed by his !eadin" of :ie!ke"aa!d and meant to su""est $st!eam of %n"st$.

Sacred Heart University Review

Volume 13 Issue 1 Sacred Heart University Review, Volume XIII, Numbers 1 & 2, Fall 1 2! S"rin# 1 $ Article 7 2-11-2010

Updike's Rabbit America !pic

Novels:

Updike's Rabbit Novels: An American Epic John Updike's quartet of novels about arry !!Rabbit'' Angstrom "Rabbit, Run, #$%&' Rabbit Redux, #$(#' Rabbit is Rich, #$)#' Rabbit at Rest, #$$#* constitutes a ma+or literary achievement, -he tetralogy covers a time span of thirty years .ith each book portraying its hero at a different stage of his troubled, unfulfilled life, Rabbit is a former high/school basketball star in a provincial city, .ho peaked at age eighteen and spends the rest of his life in a be.ildered struggle to recapture past golden moments, As his .ife, Janice, notes, he .as !!already drifting do.nhill'' before their early, hasty marriage,# Rabbit does not change in any radical .ay after high/school, e is a perpetually overaged boy, and, in Updike's vie., this kind of arrested development is quintessentially American, Readers of the Rabbit saga recogni0e ho. arry Angstrom serves as a metaphor of our culture' a paradigm for an American era an era full of guilt, loss, sickness, betrayal, and as the first syllable !!angst'' in arry's surname implies dread, Rabbit gorges himself on +unk food and dies as a consequence of his o.n appetites, symbolic of a society sinking in its o.n vulgar e1cesses, is moral code is centered largely on himself, like most Americans' he does not live in moral relation to other people, Recorded throughout the novels are the mindless diversions of mass culture and commercials from each respective time period .ith their a.ful +ollities and accepted vulgarities, -here is an A234 patient, and a cocaine addict "Rabbit's o.n son, 5elson*' .e hear the clich6s of deto1ified 5elson's sermons, and Janice's .omen's group pieties, 7ut .hile Rabbit functions as a symbol of a lost America, Updike's primary purpose is not to make political statements, e is centrally concerned .ith arry Angstrom as a person, is primary interest is the mystery of individual destines, so besides being a representative device, Rabbit is also a distinctive and convincing character, e is an unheroic hero, a figure of common clay, e

becomes hugely over.eight, caught up in his lust "he even has se1 .ith his daughter/in/la.*, is se1ist, la0y, illiterate "he spends the icks8 Updike's Rabbit 5ovels8 An American 9pic Produced by -he 7erkeley 9lectronic Press, #$$: - ;<A4 , 2C=4

.hole of Rabbit at Rest not finishing a book on American history*, a terrible father, an inadequate husband, a tiresome lecher, and a failing businessman, e is a lonely and empty man .ho has a .ay of disappointing or hurting those .ho .ould love him, e suffers from .hat 4cripture calls !!hardness of heart,'' and it is hardness of the heart "literally the consequence of massive intakes of cholesterol* that does him in, "After a last pathetic attempt at a one/on/one basketball game .ith a black teenager he has a terminal heart attack,* >et for all such indictments, Rabbit emerges as a symathetic figure, e is at least good enough to like, ?hat redeems Rabbit and makes him interesting is that he is empathetic' a reflective and perceptive human being, .ith a strange gift for life, ;f course, here .e are meeting Updike's sensibilities e1pressed through Rabbit, Rabbit Run and particularly Rabbit Redux "the book about the si1ties* .ere the .orks of an angry author .ho let his main character do his tough talking for him, 2n the later novels Rabbit's solitude deepens and he turns increasingly in.ard, and .e see the inner life of a chronically depressed man .ho vie.s the .orld as a source of so much .onder and dismay, ?hereas there .as much 0est in Rabbit, Run, Rabbit at Rest is a big, brooding, meditative book that gives the vision of a man .ho looks out at a .orld in .hich he soon .ill not e1ist, Updike described Rabbit at Rest as !!a depressed book about a depressed man, .ritten by a depressed man,''@ -here are those .ho are critical of Updike's .riting, pointing out ho. he is often proli1, 4ome of his detractors claim that he is all medium and no message, a man .ho .rites beautifully about nothing8 description makes up for analysis, detail for design, Updike's .riting has its lapses, ;ccasionally, his attempts at verbal cleverness make some of his long descriptive passages difficult to read .ith their a.k.ard and +umbled metaphors, 7ut Updike doesn't miss too often and 2 am among those .ho appreciate the satisfactions of his accurate observations that transform ordinary e1periences into something precious, ;ne of the immediately recogni0able signposts of Updike's fiction is its fondness for comprehensive detailing of the stuff of daily life8 the loving e1amination of the carpet under a dining/room table, frost on a .indo.pane, shado.s moving on a .all, the back stairs,

.here the vacuum cleaner and rubber galoshes live, and so on, e is a virtuoso of rapt evocation and getting things do.n so e1actly right, @ Sacred Heart University Review, Vol. 13, Iss. 1 [1993 , !rt. " http8AAdigitalcommons,sacredheart,eduAshurevie.Avol#:Aiss#A( UP32=9'4 RA772- 5;B9C4 %( Updike's .riting flickers .ith the recognition that the .orld .as divinely created and merits the devotion of description, 2n his #$)$ memoirs, Sel#$%onsciousness, Updike states that !!description e1presses love,'': is prolific descriptiveness is grounded in a reverential attitude8 love and praise for the .orld that .e are privileged to .itness and e1perience, and a kno.ledge that daily life .ill one day cease to be, -hus his novels bulge .ith the efforts of a man desperate to get as much of the .orld in before it's too late, Updike's fondness for comprehensive detailing of the stuff of daily life, for e1ploring corners, is his .ay of e1ecuting the ancient biblical function of praise, e is a rapt .itness to the .orld, an instrument .hereby a time and place make their mark, is lyrical and richly descriptive prose in praise of the created .orld can have the reader teeter .ith euphoria at the splendor of life, Updike's greatest gift is for the delicate revelations of metaphor and simile, 2t is admittedly a gift he over.orks at times, but it is a gift in .hich he is unsurpassed, Dor e1ample, as Rabbit and his .ife struggle together from a commodity dealer to the bank, .eighted do.n .ith (E pounds of silver dollars, Rabbit imagines suddenly ho. they must look to Fod8 like !!t.o ants trying to make it up the sides of a bathroom basin,''E Rabbit at Rest is the best of the Rabbit books' it is probably the best of all its authors novels, 2t is a riveting book, a beautiful book' long after closing it, Rabbit at Rest still seems one of the most provocative and painful books 2 have ever read, 2t is surely Updike at the height of his po.ers' here he achieves the perfection of his unique style, 2t is likely to prove his masterpiece, Updike is capable of droll humor, 2ndeed, Rabbit is Rich is something of a sustained comedy, 7ut pathos is more characteristic of Updike's .riting' it has a poignant, elegiac tone, e has been called the great elegist of the heartbreak that life inevitably brings, -he Rabbit quartet particularly discloses the dark truth that the earth keeps turning on the creatures to .hom it gives a temporary home, and the .orld eventually takes a.ay .hat it gives, 9verything breaks up against the rocks of time, As the psalmist put it8 !!2 am your passing guest, ; Cord, a so+ourner, like all my ancestors'' "Psalm :$8#@*' or as

Rabbit puts it8 !!>ou fill a slot for a time and then move out' that's the decent thing to do, make room,''G : icks8 Updike's Rabbit 5ovels8 An American 9pic Produced by -he 7erkeley 9lectronic Press, #$$: - ;<A4 , 2C=4 %) Absent in Updike's .ritings is any complacent optimism that the .orld can be improved, 2nstead he offers the vision that our lives go around in a circle and the generations do not progress so much as stay in the same place, At the center of Updike's tragic vision is that .e cannot live e1cept by devouring others, .hether physically or spiritually, !!-o be alive is to be a killer,'' the aging Rabbit concludes,% Against all soft/centered optimism, Updike salutes the doctrine of original sin and offers a deep sense of human imperfection, highlighting the notion that the sinister thing about sin is that it al.ays seems +ustified, -he crooked heart al.ays has e1cuses, o.ever, .e are far more sinning than sinned against, far more fallen than tragic, Updike has stated that !!?hat has interested me as a .riter has been betrayals,''( and every.here one turns in his novels promises are broken, contracts violated, relationships betrayed, e has been described as the laureate of suburban adultery, -his is land .here he has long and fruitfully burro.ed for material for his .ritings, An observation central to Updike's .ork is that .hen Fod dies, only se1 remains as divine, 2n our times the place of Fod has become vacant and 9ros is the engine that drives the human machine, 2n %ou&les, Updike's notorious novel of #$%$, a character named Dreddy -horne declares Updike's position8 -horne says that .e d.ell in !!one of those dark ages that visit human kind bet.een millennia, bet.een the death and rebirth of Fod, .hen there is nothing to steer by but se1 and stoicism and the stars,'') 7ut human physicality is by no means al.ays life/affirming, ?hereas in early novels, Updike e1plores the body as 9ros, in Rabbit at Rest he e1plores the body as -hanatos, the blossoming and fruition of the seed of death .e all carry inside us, Particularly harro.ing is the sequence of Rabbit's angioplasty, .here Updike takes us into !!this pond of bodily fluids and their slippery conduits,''$ -his is hard to read .ithout .anting to close one's eyes, ;ne of the pleasures of reading Updike for me has been his religious intelligence and his relentless posing of the ancient Fod/queries, is novels are tactfully religious8 their spiritual implications are mostly proposed on the sly' he does not try to force a message upon readers' he doesn't .rite tracts, but his novels are !!bothered by Fod,'' e is a neo/;rthodo1 Christian .ho echoes some

hard Christian messages and is put off by the hollo.ness of some modern theological voices that lack a sense of sin, Dor Updike, Fod is E Sacred Heart University Review, Vol. 13, Iss. 1 [1993 , !rt. " http8AAdigitalcommons,sacredheart,eduAshurevie.Avol#:Aiss#A( UP32=9'4 RA772- 5;B9C4 %$ not one to forego .rath about an !!evil and adulterous generation,'' -he multileveled themes in his novels are capsuli0ed in the idea that there is no getting a.ay' our sins coil back, 2f !!anything goes,'' there is a price, -he first t.o Rabbit books are more overtly religious "and political*, Fod is present in the last t.o books chiefly through his absence, as a felt void, Rabbit e1periences his spiritual desires .aning as his .aistline gro.s, 2n Rabbit is Rich !!Fod has shrunk in arry's middle years to the si0e of a raisin lost under the car seat,''#& 2n Rabbit at Rest, Fod seems hardly to e1ist at all, -he deto1ified 5elson offers a godless grace before meals in the name of !!Peace, ealth, 4anity, Cove,'' Rabbit notes the absence of nuns at the Catholic hospital .here he undergoes angioplasty, during .hich he tries to pray but cannot,## Rabbit at Rest is about facing death, but doing it .ithout benefit of faith, 7ut throughout all the Rabbit books there is something that bobs and shimmers beyond Rabbit's grasp, 5othing Rabbit e1periences is quite enough, e remains incomplete and searching, 2n an attempt to understand his o.n life, Rabbit has an inkling that !!some.here behind all this, there's something or someone .aiting that .ants me to find it,''#@ Updike's belief in Fod, his 4unday churchgoing, his thumping statement in Sel#$%onsciousness of his o.n belief in the resurrection of the dead and the life of the .orld to come, underline ho. unconventional his fiction is by contemporary standards and .hy he is an ob+ect of distaste to some revie.ers, ;ne of the sadnesses at the end of Rabbit at Rest is the sense that Updike .as saying goodbye to us, much as 4hakespeare says goodbye in 'he 'e(&est, Dortunately, he has remained productive, and presently resides in 7everly Dalls, <assachusetts, .here he is a !!faithful parishioner'' at 4t, John's 9piscopal Church#: "he .as raised a Cutheran and detoured through the Congregational Church*, e is a licensed lector at 4t, John's and sometimes .rites the introductions to the lessons he reads, ;ne can hope that someday those introductions .ill be published,