ABSTRACT

Something was deeply wrong with Harry Angstrom. John Updike devoted four novels to exploring the moral and religious confusion of this man, better known as Rabbit. The traditional dualism of many religions—two opposite kingdoms—is a way of understanding Rabbit, a way of knowing ourselves. Simply put, there is light and dark in all of us. We can achieve so much … yet fail so miserably. Rabbit’s life reveals human ambiguity as commonplace, not sophisticated. In Updike’s words, “I aim in my mind not toward New York but toward a vague spot a little to the east of Kansas” (Updike, 1968). It is a place where a man can milk the cows and abuse his sons. Or rescue people from burning buildings and flee the scene of his own drunken accident. Rabbit’s Pulitzer Prize story portrays the universal haziness of human life.