LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:1 January 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

HOME PAGE

Click Here for Back Issues of Language in India - From 2001

BOOKS FOR YOU TO READ AND DOWNLOAD FREE!

REFERENCE MATERIALS

BACK ISSUES

  • E-mail your articles and book-length reports in Microsoft Word to languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.

  • PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES GIVEN IN HOME PAGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE LIST OF CONTENTS.

  • Your articles and book-length reports should be written following the APA, MLA, LSA, or IJDL Stylesheet.

  • The Editorial Board has the right to accept, reject, or suggest modifications to the articles submitted for publication, and to make suitable stylistic adjustments. High quality, academic integrity, ethics and morals are expected from the authors and discussants.

Copyright © 2014
M. S. Thirumalai
Custom Search

Collapse of Values as Picturised in John Updike’s Novels -
Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux

R. Aarthy, M.A., M.Phil.


John Updike (1932-2009)
Courtesy: http://www.clivejames.com/updikeslast

Abstract

The paper attempts to picturise how values collapse in American culture and society. John Updike is one of the most prolific and important American Novelists. The novel Rabbit, Run is developed around Rabbit’s impulse for the natural and the consequences of this impulse. Rabbit, as a “Noble” urban savage, represents modern man’s traditionless character and depicts his concomitant problems. Rabbit Redux deals with the collapse of values. It is an attempt to depict the tumult of the era as it happens in contemporary American culture. The apocalyptic interpretation of twentieth century life is presented in Rabbit Redux through the annihilation resulting from the loss of human values. Updike devised for himself a style of narration, an intense present tense and free indirect style. The Rabbit novels were written by Updike in the present tense. Updike vividly portrays the collapse of values in American culture and society through his novels Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux.

Keywords:Racism, American pragmatism, Hippies and Colloquialism.

John Updike – Love of Words and Ideas

John Updike is considered one of the greatest American fiction writers of twentieth century. He is a prodigy. His natural talent is so great that for some time it has been a positive handicap to him, in a small way by exposing him from an early age to a great deal of head-turning praise and in a large way by continually getting out of hand. His love of words and ideas for their own sake is almost Joycean. Updike’s style is as winning and as polished as the people from whose voice it derives.

Careful Craftsmanship and Unique Prose Style

Updike was well recognized for his careful craftsmanship, his unique prose style, and his prolific creativity. Updike populated his fiction with characters that “frequently experience personal turmoil and must respond to crises relating to religion, family, obligations, and marital infidelity. His fiction is distinguished by its attention to the concerns, passions, and suffering of average Americans. His work has attracted a significant amount of critical attention and praise.

Principal Themes

The principal themes in Updike’s work are religion, sex and American as well as death. Updike wrote about America with a certain nostalgia, reverence, and recognition and celebration of America’s broad diversity. Updike’s fiction always shows the dramatic moods of characters. His heroes have heroic tendencies but they seem to be heading to an absurd ending-probably less tragic in a sense. Updike’s hero often finds himself in a cell made of women-his mother, his mistress and his wife. He has a feeling that life is pinned between anarchic and holistic impulses continually expressed in sexual ambivalences. The hero is often bewitched between his mistress and wife finding his destiny in sexual calamity. The various themes that Updike hastened to explore in his fiction take the shapes of dualisms: life vs death, the individual vs society, and love vs hate, matter vs spirit and intuition vs Christian institution. Updike looks very much concerned with the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself.

Focus of This Study

Among the novels of John Updike Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux are chosen for this paper with the title “Collapse of Values as Picturised in John Updike’s Novels: Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux.” Through these novels, Updike attempts to picturise how values collapse in American culture and society. The Rabbit novels serve as a fictionalized time-line of the post-war American experience.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

R. Aarthy, M.A., M.Phil.
Assistant Professor in English
Sri Vidya College of Engineering & Technology
Virudhunagar - 626005
Tamilnadu
India
aarthysrnm@gmail.com

Custom Search
  • Click Here to Go to Creative Writing Section

  • Send your articles
    as an attachment
    to your e-mail to
    languageinindiaUSA@gmail.com.
  • Please ensure that your name, academic degrees, institutional affiliation and institutional address, and your e-mail address are all given in the first page of your article. Also include a declaration that your article or work submitted for publication in LANGUAGE IN INDIA is an original work by you and that you have duly acknowledged the work or works of others you used in writing your articles, etc. Remember that by maintaining academic integrity we not only do the right thing but also help the growth, development and recognition of Indian/South Asian scholarship.