John Updike’s Rabbit, Run

A Quest for a Spiritual Vocabulary in the Vacuum Left by Modernism

Authors

  • David J Fekete Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/rsth.v26i1.25

Keywords:

John Updike, Modernism

Abstract

This article considers the powerful role of language and imaginative literature in cultural and self-formation. Drawing on Richard Rorty’s description of narrative forms as vehicles for meaning, I describe leading metaphors in representative literature of the Modern period. I suggest that Modernism exhibits a cultural loss of meaning, and a “death of God” zeitgeist. Works of that period also show pessimism about erotic relationships. I proceed with a close reading of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, which was written just as the Modern period closes. In Updike, the protagonist intuits a strong spirituality and finds rich erotic experience. But in the wake of Modernism’s spiritual vacuity, and erotic pessimism, the protagonist in Rabbit, Run desperately seeks a vocabulary to voice his intuitions which his own culture cannot sustain.

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Published

2007-10-05

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Fekete, D. J. (2007). John Updike’s Rabbit, Run: A Quest for a Spiritual Vocabulary in the Vacuum Left by Modernism. Religious Studies and Theology, 26(1), 25-44. https://doi.org/10.1558/rsth.v26i1.25