The Writings of John Updike :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Writings of John Updike John Updikes Rabbit books tell the story of a universe whose life is in constant turmoil. Harry Rabbit Angstroms downward spiral started the day his senior basketball season ended. Rabbit was a basketball champion he knew nothing else. He married his high school sweetheart more out of convenience than love and worked in the same printing invoke as his father. Rabbit couldnt face the working world, couldnt face his parents, and couldnt face his married woman and son. He was constantly caught somewhere in the middle ground between accountability and sinful pleasure. Rabbits mind was constantly wandering, searching for something he could hold on to, something that would remain constant through the thick and thin of life. He needed some other basketball. Rabbits life is the perfect model for a case study on how not to cash in ones chips. Anything appealing that entered his mind, he did it. Rabbit cheated on his wife, ignored his mother, was unaffected when his wife left him, took up with an eighteen course of instruction old girl when he was well into his thirties and did not attempt to hide any of it from his twelve year old son, Nelson. Rather than getting tough when times were hard, Rabbit ran. He ran from a pregnant wife, Janice, from Nelson who was then twelve, from employment, from his parents, from everything. Rabbit practiced the opposite of perseverance. When life wasnt personnel casualty well, Rabbit simply moved on to something else. Rabbit matters because he was so wrong. Our thoughts often mimic Rabbits actions. But Rabbit takes the heat for us. His twisted, perverse life shows us that the choices he made were the wrong ones. Not to imply that he was in any way godly, but like Jesus, Rabbit suffered for our sins. How many times do we find ourselves bored in life, wishing that we could just move on to something else, give up and start over? Each time we do, we can entertain Rabbit. Rabbit reminds us that without work, life is not fulfilling. He shows us that you cant start over, that you can never leave your life behind. Rabbit shows us that we have to live with our mistakes, that we cant just act like they never happened. Rabbit tries to run, but he cant. He reminds us that people dont just forget and move on.