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Zac Binkley

Dr. Fedirka

English 492

7 December 2015

“A Representative Creature”: Harry Angstrom as an Embodiment of America in the

Rabbit Tetralogy

In the pantheon of 20th century American writers few rank as high as John Updike (1932-

2009). Dubbed “America’s Man of Letters” by biographer William H. Pritchard, Updike was

one of America’s most prolific authors ever and published upwards of sixty novels, non-fiction

books, and collections of short stories and poetry. By any stretch of the imagination Updike’s

influence on the American literary scene is gargantuan and the hole left by his recent death in

2009 has prompted many in literary circles to begin determining Updike’s lasting legacy.

Among the volumes written by Updike the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy is regarded as his magnum

opus. Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom is Updike’s everyman, a white, protestant middle-class male

whose glory days as a high school basketball star are behind him as the first novel begins.

Beginning with Rabbit, Run in the twilight months of the 1950s and concluding in 1989 with

Rabbit at Rest each novel is set at the end of a decade, a period of transition for both Harry the

man and his nation. This trend continues with the epilogue in the form of a novella, Rabbit

Remembered and its events during the holiday season of 1999. As our would-be hero Rabbit

experiences great change in his life so does the America he inhabits, and Updike sets his fiction

against the backdrop of this familiar historical reality. Each Angstrom story ends with a one

word sentence that reflects both the state of Rabbit and the state of the nation at the time. This

pattern will be our focus. These final words are significant and worthy of our attention because

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they are the reflective surface upon which the parallels between Harry’s personal life and the life

of the nation he inhabits are built.

Before exploring Rabbit Angstrom it is pertinent that we first learn more about the man

that created him. We can sum up Updike’s general goal as a writer in his own words of the

preface to The Early Stories, a collection of short stories of his in which he describes his writing

as “giving the mundane its beautiful due” (qtd. in Barnes). This is self-evident in Updike’s

overwhelmingly ordinary Middle America subjects which Rabbit epitomizes. Other Updike

works such as “A&P” take place in a grocery store like any other and is told from the perspective

of a typical nineteen year old young man as his otherwise mundane and boring job gets more

interesting with the arrival of a group of girls wearing nothing but their bathing suits. Often

times in the Rabbit stories the location is a dimly lit living room, a cheap and greasy restaurant, a

sleepy middle class neighborhood on a morning much like any other, or the long and winding

pavement of the Interstate. It is in locales such as these that Updike feels most at home in his

fiction, and it is here where the bulk of the story is told, in the most unsuspecting of places. It is

here that Updike is able to make these familiar and ordinary things mean so much more to us.

Critics have discussed Updike’s writings at length, sometimes expressing differing

opinions. In the article “Judging John Updike” David Baddiel declares Updike to be the greatest

writer in English of the 20th century that wrote the way he did “not because he had nothing to say

but because he had everything to say” (Baddiel & Meyers). The other writer, Jeffrey Meyers

takes the opposing view that Updike amounted to a “narcissist with a thesaurus” and despite his

wonderful way with words he came to embody the “superficial and vacuous” New Yorker values,

a publication in which Updike was a regular contributor. Baddiel answers back at critics such as

Harold Bloom who call Updike “a minor novelist with a major style” and James Wood who

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wrote “Updike is not, I think, a great novelist” (qtd. in Baddiel). In response to these assertions

that Updike may be a fanciful writer of prose but ultimately hollow Baddiel claims that Updike

“is the great poet of the ordinary life, of domesticity, of life as most people live it – as opposed to

Saul Bellow, who writes mainly about life as deep-thinking intellectuals, academics and writers

live it” (Baddiel). In other words Updike’s intended audience (to match his goal of giving the

mundane its beautiful due) is on the average folks, the everyday people, those living out what

they might believe to be unremarkable lives. In some ways Updike’s focus is on the invisible in

the sense that we hardly recognize the beauty or truly remarkable nature of the seemingly

mundane world around us. This was Updike’s aim in writing, to make us see the old from a new

perspective by which we can appreciate its otherwise unacknowledged beauty. Baddiel

continues: “the problem for gravitas-chasing critics such as Bloom and Wood was that Updike

writes small – and they mistook this for the size of his talent” (Baddiel). Updike’s subjects were

indeed small scale generally and his characters (as well as himself) were not always accepted

into the literary fold warmly. Nonetheless his legacy is profound and his appeal to the ordinary

folk clear.

Among the multitude of Updike’s extensive body of work, the Rabbit Angstrom series of

four novels and one novella are widely recognized as Updike’s magnum opus. Many authors

have written what can be considered the elusive Great American Novel and the Rabbit series is

Updike’s contribution to this uniquely American genre which seeks to encapsulate the life of an

ordinary American citizen at a certain time and place. As the character’s name suggests, the

novels are about the life of a character that takes a nonlinear pathway to pursue the rainbow of

happiness. Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom is “a zigzagging creature of impulse and appetite”, and his

surname Angstrom “indicates that Harry is also the bearer of a more metaphysical burden”

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(Barnes). This angst suggested by his surname is where Updike does his work of making the

novels not only about the life of one seemingly ordinary man. Updike tells Harry’s story in such

a way that the reader recognizes the profound beauty in Harry’s life which, in the hands of a less

skilled writer, we might have missed. Harry goes about his life in much the same way the

average American might, but Updike highlights the beauty of Harry’s ordinary existence.

Updike sets his sight higher, to the metaphysical and often times the divine (religion is one of

Updike’s major themes in general) in an effort to infuse the reader’s perspective of Rabbit with a

respect for the beauty they might have otherwise missed. Updike is only illuminating what he

already believes to be there.

Harry’s zigzagging nature is evident in the first novel when he takes an erratic course

out of his hometown of Brewer, Pennsylvania and heads south for a way before slinking back

home to live for a short time with a known prostitute, Ruth. His actions are often unpredictable

but Updike constructs the character in such a way that we do not completely lose sympathy for

him. There is something admirable about his character despite his shortcomings that allow us to

connect with the man, love him or hate him.

The driving conflicts of the tetralogy are primarily based in Rabbit’s persistent desire to

live a fulfilling life, though he usually does not even know what that means himself. Rabbit’s

passionate pursuit of the rainbow of happiness sets him on a course of continuous conflict that

manifests in a variety of ways. Rabbit regularly comes into conflict with people around him

such as his wife Janice or son Nelson, constantly struggles to satisfy his base desires such as lust

which oftentimes cause his erratic and irresponsible behavior, and routinely clashes with the

radical cultural changes that take place in the latter half of 20th century American society. Also

in all the books Rabbit is actively seeking some sort of spiritual peace to settle his ever present

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existential angst. It is his urge to simply be happy, in his own usually flawed way, that drives the

conflicts of the tetralogy. Harry is pursuing a better or happier way of living and ultimately it is

this desire that pushes the novels forward.

Rabbit’s conflicts are intimately tied with the background setting that has a character of

its own. These settings at the “live-wire ends of the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s” are

established so purposefully and intricately by Updike to “capture the intensities of American

life” at those periods of decadal transitions (Boyagoda 42). The fact that Updike places the

character of Rabbit in these settings is no accident, as the setting and the man act in tandem with

one another and effectively need the other to exist to their fullest potential. The setting would

not be as important if we did not have the unique character of Rabbit to serve as our window into

the changing world. By the same hand Rabbit himself would lose something as a character if he

was not purposefully crafted as an embodiment of the country. Boyagoda describes the

importance of the historical setting of the novel by adding that Updike reveals “a Middle

American Everyman making his way through the bumpy back half of the American Century,

feeling entitled and pressed down by all the temptations and trials surrounding him, personal and

national both” (42). Here we are beginning to see the strong connection between Rabbit and the

American society he inhabits develop. Harry’s journey and the journey of the nation are

intimately tied together, and Harry provides our personal view of the broader societal changes

that occur during his life. Boyagoda claims that the fates of Rabbit and his nation are entwined,

and this understanding is crucial for us to thoroughly construct the parallels between Rabbit and

his nation.

The connection between Rabbit and his country has been expanded upon in the

scholarship. Catherine Morley argues that Rabbit is “hewed to the formative textures of

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twentieth-century America” providing the examples of US consumerism, global business

networks (via Springer Motors, space technology (the 1969 Apollo Moon landing) and the

Internet after his death. Morley claims this is significant because “Updike deliberately creates

Rabbit as a representative creature, characterizing a particular but pervasive aspect of the

national character” (Morley 192). Running with Morley’s point it becomes clear that Rabbit’s

fate and the fate of his country are inexorably entwined. The events that shape the country at the

national level are events that happen concurrent to and intersect with the details of Rabbit’s

personal life. In Rabbit Redux the moon landing happens simultaneously with Janice’s departure

from their home (including the adolescent Nelson) to live with another man who would

eventually become Harry’s friend, Charlie Stavros. While the nation is reaching new

technological heights of human innovation in the vast emptiness of space, Rabbit has found his

home newly empty without his wife.

Rabbit and the people around him are fictional characters but that doesn’t mean they are

insulated from real-world events. In fact this truth is necessary for the tetralogy to function

correctly, given that Harry is representative of the national character. Morley notes that there is a

“historical consciousness within Rabbit himself – a fictional character imbued with an awareness

of the actual” (Morley 194). This grounds Rabbit in our world to such an extent that the man

becomes inseparable from the time and place of the culture he inhabits. His anxieties over the

country’s struggle with Vietnam, the shock of a criminal president in Nixon and concerns over

economic difficulties of the 1970s are the same thoughts many Americans that lived during these

times also dealt with. Morley goes on to state what the implications are for our protagonist given

the importance of his historical setting: “throughout each decade the public events of the day

infiltrate the very individual life of the ‘hero’, the tensions of the nation become, both implicitly

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and explicitly, those of the citizen” (Morley 195). Rabbit cannot escape the events of the world

at large around him and sometimes his life seems insignificant compared to the greater national

issues affecting the country and the world at large; thus the life of our one individual man is

guided in part by the things outside of his control. It is on this stage of Rabbit’s relative

insignificance as but one individual in a country of tens of millions that Updike aims to show us

the profound in the life of one common man.

Other writers and readers have acknowledged the parallels between Harry the man and

America the country. In his retrospective review of the Rabbit tetralogy just after Updike’s death

Julian Barnes speaks to the significance of these novels: “Any future historian wanting to

understand the texture, smell, feel and meaning of bluey-white-collar life in ordinary America

between the 1950s and the 1990s will need little more than the Rabbit quartet” (Barnes). It is

clear that reading these texts with an eye towards the direct parallels between Harry and the

nation is bound to be a rewarding and worthwhile endeavor. However, this is a daunting task

considering the exceptional length of the Rabbit texts and the virtually infinite words one might

say about American history. This is why our focus will be sharpened, fine-tuned on how the

final words of each Rabbit text is representative of concurrent changes in the lives of both our

protagonist and his country. The first of these places us in the twilight period of the 1950s with

Rabbit, Run.

The last word of the first Rabbit novel is the provocative subject-less verb: Runs. In the

man’s personal life he is running from what he considers to be the trap of family life and

responsibility, from a mundane ordinary existence that was preceded by the glory of his high

school basketball days. This path of flight culminates and at the end of the novel, when Harry

runs from the reality of his baby daughter’s funeral and away from his newly pregnant mistress

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Ruth. But Rabbit knows not where his destination lies. His zig-zag route of evasion began at the

opening of the novel when he starts to drive away from his home in Pennsylvania. He makes it

some distance before stopping for gas and asking the man servicing the pump for directions. The

man leaves Rabbit’s view for a moment and returns announcing he has no map that can help

Harry find his way, informing him that “The only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure

out where you’re going before you go there” (Run 30). Rabbit dismisses the man quickly, saying

“I don’t think so” and continues on his way, unsure of his direction. The final word’s

significance can be felt here in Harry’s insistence on continuing to move somewhere and not

remain stagnant. Harry does not know where to run to at the end of the novel given that he has

abandoned his family at his daughter’s funeral and he has just been rejected by his mistress, and

he also doesn’t know exactly where he’s driving to in this scene. The man warns Harry that he

won’t arrive where he wants to be if he doesn’t have a destination in mind but Rabbit resists this

advice and promptly runs from this man as well.

Harry’s motivations for running remain mostly implied by Updike throughout the novel

until we get a clear articulation of his thought process after he runs from Janice and his children

the second time. Harry’s feeling is that “what made him mad at Janice wasn’t so much that she

was in the right for once [that his flight from his family was wrong] and he was wrong and stupid

but the closed feeling of it, the feeling of being closed in” (285). Harry is describing a feeling of

reaching a dead-end in life in this passage. His thoughts continue: “What held him back all day

was the feeling that somewhere there was something better for him than listening to babies cry

and cheating people in used car lots and it’s this feeling he tries to kill” (286). In Rabbit’s mind

he has become trapped in a mediocre existence with screaming children, in a shabby home and

with a wife he has lost interest in. This situation is more grueling for Rabbit when we consider

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that his life as a high school basketball star was incredibly promising, everyone recognized his

exceptionalness on the court and Harry basked in the attention. Now that he is an adult with a

wife and family his great expectations have yet to be fulfilled and he wants a way out. He feels

he’s been trapped by being average, something he was not a mere handful of years ago. And so

he runs. The final word of the novel is an acknowledgement of the emptiness of the average life

Harry struggles with; it is his only means of escape.

The concluding passage reinforces the idea of Harry as running from the perceived threat

of a dead end. Harry has ran from everyone in his life at the end, his family, his mistress, and

even his only true friend in Jack Eccles, and still all Harry can do is continue to run. Harry’s

aimless running to an uncertain future is described by Updike thus: “His hands lift of their own

and he feels the wind on his ears even before, his heels hitting heavily on the pavement at first

but with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing lighter and quicker and

quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Runs” (325). The answer to Rabbit’s running is here; he is panicked,

and in response, as his name suggests, runs in an aimless zigzagging fashion towards destinations

unknown. In terms of the novel this leaves things up in the air for Angstrom and company. As

he runs readers are left with no opportunity to catch their breaths and Harry’s fate is left in

question. This abandonment in Harry’s personal life parallels the imminent groundbreaking

change and upheaval that is about to rock America to its foundations. Just as Harry has no idea

where he’s heading at the end of the novel at the end of the 1950s, so too the nation is unaware

of the strife that awaits in the 1960s.

For the relevance of the final word “Runs” to the nation to be fully understood one needs

to be aware of the great transition from a Leave-it-to-Beaver-esque of the wholesome, nuclear

family oriented, tranquil by comparison decade of the 1950s to the events of the 1960s which left

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virtually no segment of the population untouched. America might not know it in the final years

of the 1950s and the opening years of the 1960s but the country is indeed running from the

constraints of post-WWII society. It might be that like Harry the country began to wonder if

there was something better out there, a better way to live. This is evident in things such as the

civil rights movement in which people collectively came to the realization that there was indeed

a better way of living than the status quo. Rabbit and America have this same thirst for

something more. In the case of the nation it runs to the dramatic social changes of the upcoming

decade in pursuit of this goal. But unlike Harry the nation knew what it wanted; freedom,

equality, a proper government. Harry on the other hand does not figure out what he wants or

where he runs to, and as a result he is left as aimless and unfulfilled as ever.

Nearly a decade later Rabbit and company find themselves in the height of 1960s turmoil.

Amidst the bumpiness of this decade the final word Updike leaves us hanging with is presented

as a timid question: “O.K.?” which represents Rabbit’s need to be reassured that despite the

apparent chaos of both his personal life and the country’s challenges he will be alright. To

understand the relevance of this question to Rabbit’s personal life we must go back to the earlier

part of the novel when Janice first leaves him and Nelson to go live with another man that works

with her at her father’s car dealership. With the sting of Janice’s departure still fresh for Rabbit

he and Nelson go to visit Rabbit’s parents to watch the moon landing. Once again we see

historical events serving as the national backdrop for the personal drama of Rabbit’s individual

life. Rabbit’s mother is ill at this point and rarely leaves the bed. The family gathers in front of

the television and watches as Rabbit’s mother weakly reaches out and attempts to massage the

back of his head “to ease away thoughts of the trouble she knows he is in. ‘I don’t know, Mom,’

he abruptly admits. ‘I know it’s happened, but I don’t feel anything yet’” (Redux 106). Harry’s

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mother is aware that Janice has left him and knows that he is in a painful place. He needs

comfort and reassurance and in this scene Rabbit’s mother is trying her best to provide him with

that. The full weight of what has transpired and separated his family hasn’t hit Rabbit yet. In a

sense Rabbit is lost in an emptiness of emotion which mirrors the emptiness of space the

astronauts are in. Rabbit is looking for some sort of grounding and his mother is reassuring him

that he is ok in this scene.

At least a portion of Rabbit’s need for comfort and reassurance stems from his knowledge

that he is losing control. At the climax of the novel after Rabbit takes in a hippy runaway girl

named Jill, and Skeeter, a black revolutionary associated with the Black Panthers, Rabbit gets a

call from Skeeter urging him to quickly return home. Rabbit and Nelson rush to their home and

Nelson cries out to his father when a fire engine blasts by the pair. Rabbit responds to Nelson’s

cry for his father and Nelson replies “nothing, I thought you lost control”. Harry calms Nelson:

“Never. Not your Dad” (340). The final question of the novel is relevant in this scene because

Rabbit is still desperately grabbing for some reason to believe that things will be ok. This stems

from the fact that some factors are simply out of his control and his reassuring Nelson that he

never loses control is a hollow promise when the two arrive to find their home ablaze with

Skeeter nowhere to be found and Jill dead. Arson is the expected cause due to the

neighborhood’s disapproval of Harry’s living arrangement. This traumatic event sends Harry’s

life in a tailspin and is also one of the biggest reasons Nelson builds up a great deal of animosity

towards his father after this point, a development which takes center stage in the conflict of the

following novel. Harry’s purpose with his reply in this scene is twofold: first it is to calm Nelson

down and second it is to reassure himself that it will all turn out ok. Unfortunately this is not the

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case and we find Harry shattered and left with very little security after the loss of his home.

Rabbit’s attempts to take control of his life have failed thus far and end in tragedy.

However, Harry’s fate takes a minor turn for the better at the end of the novel when he

reunites with Janice in a shabby motel room. This tragedy, much like the death of Rebecca prior,

has brought the family back together and Harry is finally able to get some sense that things might

be ok, at least for a moment. Rabbit is in his most emotionally vulnerable state of the novels in

the concluding scene of the Redux. After confessing to his wife that he feels guilty about

everything and that he can’t accept that not everything is his fault, Rabbit lies on the bed with

Janice and finds the familiar dip of her waist “and slips along it, sleeps. He. She. Sleeps.

O.K.?” (435). At last Rabbit has found a peaceful place in which he can be ok, at least right

here, right now. Harry’s guilt is in full force and he feels that the course of events is his fault

alone. Janice reassures him this is not the case and accepts him. The chaos of the earlier pages

has ended and Rabbit is left to embrace the peace of sleep. Tragedy has struck but at the end of

it all Rabbit must live with the consequences and be ok with them less his guilt tear him apart.

The connection of the final word of Redux to America is that the country is taking a sigh

of relief at the end of the 1960s, and is in need of a rest. Much change has happened and the dust

has yet to settle. Harry recognizes this when he gets in an argument with Jill and goes on a tirade

against many of the counterculture movements prevalent at the time. The argument frightens

Nelson and he asks his Dad why he disagrees with everyone. Harry replies: “Because I love my

country and can’t stand to have it knocked”. Jill says that if this is the case he would want it

better and Harry says “If it was better I’d have to be better” (180). Nowhere in the Rabbit

novels is the connection between Harry and his nation presented so explicitly by Updike. Harry

is speaking as if he and the nation are one in the same and in many ways he is correct because his

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fate is shared by the country. As Harry grows, learns and resists so does the country at large.

The ok question at the end is directed towards this turmoil the country and Rabbit both find

themselves struggling with in response to the social upheavals they’re living through. Both

Harry and the nation need some peace and reassurance that through all the chaos things will still

be ok for them both.

The turmoil experienced by Rabbit and company in Redux gives way to the height of

Rabbit’s material successes and familial satisfaction in Rabbit is Rich. The novel ends on Super

Bowl Sunday 1980 just after Rabbit and Janice move to their new home in an upscale

neighborhood and Rabbit’s new daughter-in-law Pru arrives and presents him with a gift:

“Through all this she has pushed to be here, in his lap, his hands, a real presence hardly weighing

anything but alive. Fortune’s hostage, heart’s desire, a granddaughter. His. Another nail in his

coffin. His” (Rich 533). The significance of the final word here is that it represents the height of

Rabbit’s life. In a sense the world is his; he has arrived at success of some kind. That’s not to

say this part of Harry’s life is without turmoil; Nelson returns home from Kent State for the

summer and expresses no intention to return in the fall and his sudden announcement of an

unexpected child with a woman Harry never met comes as a surprise to the family. However by

the end of the novel these issues are largely resolved and Harry is on the upswing, even with the

subtle reminder that Judy is also “another nail in his coffin” and another sign of his increasingly

apparent mortality.

Rabbit’s material wealth is evident in his ever-increasing monetary wealth. This leads to

a greater sense of overall life satisfaction for him and an ease in the tension that seems to be

ever-present for our protagonist. “Lately he no longer feels he is late for somewhere, a strange

sort of peace at his time of life: a thrown ball at the top of its arc is for a second still. His gold is

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rising in value [through investments]. . . without his lifting a finger, you think how Pop slaved”

(258). With his new place at the top of the chain in Springer Motors (Janice’s father’s old

business before he died) Harry secures his financial comfort. The money that he struggled to

acquire in the previous novels has now become “unreal” to him, he can spend hundreds of

dollars and not think a thing of it (458). The wealth, country club membership (another signifier

of the upper middle class) and social status that goes along with considerable means is at last his.

Despite the issues with Nelson, Harry is at the top of the arc of his life in this novel. His material

success in business and wealth is topped off at the end of the story with a new house, a happy

wife, and some new additions to Harry’s familial wealth, a daughter-in-law, Pru, and his very

own granddaughter, baby Judy.

These new additions to Rabbit’s family comprise the other side of his newfound wealth in

the novel. Rabbit himself even considers them as part of his growing fortune: “[Harry] is

amused by the idea of his having a daughter-in-law at all, a new branch of his wealth” (329).

This branch of Harry’s wealth only grows larger when Judy arrives in his hands at the end of the

novel. It seems that Rabbit is on a roll with good fortune, the major conflict in this novel being

his tenuous and confrontational relationship with Nelson who repeatedly brings up how his dad

has wronged the family time and time again in the scenarios described in the prior two books.

Nevertheless Nelson’s struggles with finding his way in life are assuaged upon his return to

school and Rabbit is presented with a healthy granddaughter to call his own. To top it all off

Janice is content as well. Harry reaches the pinnacle of worldly success in Rabbit is Rich and

can finally call happiness his.

The connection between the final word of Rich and the American identity is less direct

than the other novels and the parallels between Harry’s life and the country seem to have a more

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inverted relationship in this story. Where in the last two novels Harry and the country were

largely following the same paths, in Rich their courses seem to have diverged. Issues such as

great inflation, the Iran hostage crisis, and the 1979 energy crisis work to mar the Carter

presidency and plants the United States at odds with the ownership and satisfaction Rabbit is

taking hold of in his personal life. Rabbit comments on the state of the country in his typical

self-praising manner. After mentioning that traffic along Route 111 is thin compared to what it

used to be Rabbit thinks to himself: “the fucking world is running out of gas. But they won’t

catch him, not yet, because there isn’t a piece of junk on the road gets better mileage than his

Toyotas, with lower service costs” (3). He goes on to say that his customers are getting frantic

because “they know the great American ride is ending” (3). This pessimistic view of the state of

things at the national level contrasts with the contentment Harry experiences in his personal life.

In many ways the other Rabbit novels could be considered tragedies but in the case of Rabbit is

Rich the story ends happily. This is how we can make sense of the final word in relation to the

American identity at the end of the 1970s. Rabbit is Rich breaks the pattern set by the other

books by being a sort of comedy as evidenced by Nelson and Pru’s marriage and the safe arrival

of their child. It also breaks the pattern in that the last word has opposite meanings for Harry and

the country. While Harry is in control of his life as suggested by the word “his” the country

seems to be losing control as evidenced by the aforementioned political and economic challenges

of the Carter years. America finds itself in some years of hardship and doubt while Harry

reaches the top of his arc.

Despite the temporary happiness Harry finds at the end of Rabbit is Rich his life enters

yet another bumpy stage before it reaches the end game. After one final act of familial betrayal

and one last run from home Rabbit finds himself on his deathbed in a hospital in Florida with

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Nelson watching over him, begging him to not die after what turns out to be a fatal heart attack.

Harry feels that the boy depends on him for a response and he is able to muster up a few final

words: “Well, Nelson,’ he says, ‘all I can tell you is, it isn’t so bad.’ Rabbit thinks he should

maybe say more, the kid looks wildly expectant, but enough. Maybe. Enough.” (Rest 590). The

meaning of the final word with regards to Rabbit is straightforward; his ride is over, he has lived

long enough and Updike has brought him to his final destination. Rabbit’s time in the limelight

is over and he must leave the stage and make way for what comes next.

The theme of Rabbit’s time being over and the world around him moving on emerge

multiple times throughout the novel, and unlike the other novels the parallels between the

developing American identity and Rabbit’s personal life in Rabbit at Rest are usually wrapped up

in one scene. Harry acknowledges this growing gap between himself and the state of the country

in several key instances. In Harry’s mind “he is still trying to keep up with America, as it

changes styles and costumes and vocabulary, as it dances ahead ever young, ever younger”

(323). The growing gulf between Harry and American culture is developing along these lines

and Updike is building a case for Harry’s demise at the end of the novel. Harry has seen enough

of this great American ride and is now losing the grasp on it which he once held so firmly in the

earlier novels. His age is showing yet he is still the same Harry Angstrom we’ve come to know.

He recognizes that the world is continuing on without him but there is still a spark of life in him

yet.

An example of the world around Harry continuing to change with or without him is the

scene in which he marches as Uncle Sam in an Independence Day parade. This scene is ripe

with commentary on the national identity as well as the twilight of Harry’s life. While walking

down the street in full Uncle Sam attire, recognized by old classmates for who he is, Harry once

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more recognizes that change has even come to his hometown. “The whole town he knew has

been swallowed up, by the decades, but another has taken its place, younger, more naked, less

fearful, better. And it still loves him, as it did when he would score forty-two points for them in

a single home game. He is a legend, a walking cloud” (426). Harry still holds a place in the

collective memory of his home but there is no doubt it is not the same place he grew up. The

city is moving forward yet Harry is still recognized by many in the crowd as Rabbit Angstrom,

the basketball star they once adored years ago. However, while Harry is on clouds for part of the

walk he also experiences some difficulty in maintaining this glorious image.

Before Harry basks in the glory of recognition from people that recognize him he must

first contend with his goatee that insists on falling off in the middle of the parade. “He feels one

side of it softly separate from his chin” and takes out a piece of tape Judy retrieved for him and

repairs it all without breaking his Uncle Sam stride. The crowd cheers in approval of his

improvised repair and the parade continues (424). In this scene Rabbit plays an Uncle Sam,

America manifest as a man that is literally falling apart. He is able to pull it back together but

nonetheless the character appears to be breaking down before the eyes of the onlookers. We

should not interpret this to mean that the nation as a whole is decaying but we should view it as

the America Harry represents; the decades and culture immediately following World War II,

being on the downswing. This is evidenced by the fact that, as mentioned, the town he knew has

been swallowed up and replaced by a better one (426). Harry’s struggles as Uncle Sam only

symbolize the end of the America that Harry knew. The end of his own life is not far off and it is

fitting that as the America he knew and grew up in fades away into history he should as well. In

both regards, Harry and the country as he knew it, have had enough. They are both still

recognized as important, but their time has come to move on.

Binkley 18

Also coinciding with the end of Harry’s life is the end of the Cold War. While there were

still a couple years of tensions remaining after Harry’s life is over by the fall of 1989, many of

the chips have fallen in favor of the United States and its rivals were on the out. Harry lived all

of his adult life in the Cold War, and now as that chapter of American history draws to a close so

will he, as he is a “representative creature” of the latter half of 20th century America (Morley

192). Harry even ponders the state of the American identity without the Cold War during his

final drive from Pennsylvania to Florida, asking himself “without the Cold War, what’s the point

of being an American?” (Rest 509). The implication here is that Harry’s identity is so caught up

with the political climate of the United States and the foundation of his character is based in this

relationship (America and Harry know that they are not the Soviet Union) that without this

conflict his character is somewhat adrift. Since it has been established that Harry and America

are largely reflections of one another, what place would Harry have in this new world in which

he is becoming a living breathing anachronism? Where can he go in this new world? He finds

the answer to this question when he decides to decisively leave home once more to evade his

difficulties at home.

On the way down to Florida Rabbit wants to make a pit stop to see an old place that he

visited in the first novel. He wants to visit “a hardware store with two pumps outside, where a

thickset farmer in two shirts and hairy nostrils had advised him to know where he was going

before he went there. Well, now he does” (503). While Rabbit does not yet consciously know it,

he is driving towards the inevitable end of his life; that was the ultimate destination he was

heading to all these years. In the first novel he wants to retreat to Florida and he eventually gets

there for vacation in his later years before returning there once more to (unknowingly) conclude

his life. Harry’s serious heart trouble is referenced heavily in the last two novels and it doesn’t

Binkley 19

come as much of a surprise when his heart finally gives out for good and literally rips itself apart

(584). While Harry’s untimely end comes as a disheartening turn for many readers who have

grown attached to the character his death is necessary as the America he came to embody withers

away and dies as well. That’s not to say that Harry’s influence on his family and the America he

came to represent didn’t matter, just the opposite. They were both hugely important at laying the

groundwork for everything that came after, both the latter decades of the 1900s for America and

Harry in that he continues to impact his family ten years after his death in the novella that serves

as an epilogue to the tetralogy, Rabbit Remembered. Nonetheless Harry and the country he

represented have ran their course by the time Harry’s life ends in the fall of 1989. In the word of

Updike: enough. Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom and the decades of American history he was part of

have come to a close. Harry’s destination has been reached in the sunshine state of Florida, and

he can finally take a rest from all his running.

While Rabbit does not appear in the final novella Rabbit Remembered, it too follows the

same general formula, this time with regards to the surviving members of Rabbit’s family over

the holiday season of 1999. Annabelle, Rabbit’s lost daughter with Ruth conceived in the first

novel, shows up at Janice’s house (who is now married to Rabbit’s old rival Ronnie) and

announces that she exists. Nelson, living with his mother and Ronnie while he is separated from

Pru and the kids, befriends Annabelle and tries to encourage a relationship between her and his

childhood friend Billy. Eventually after some initial difficulties at Thanksgiving dinner over the

Clinton scandal and a New Year’s outing between Nelson, Annabelle, Pru and Billy, Annabelle

bonds with the family and informs Nelson that marriage to Billy is a possibility and asks Nelson

if he will give her away. “Gladly” is Nelson’s simple reply (Licks of Love 374). This acceptance

of Annabelle into Rabbit’s family coincides with the reconciliation of Nelson with Pru. All in all

Binkley 20

wounds are healed by the end of Rabbit Remembered and all these people with different

relationships with Harry can come together and live happily. The final word is significant here

because it demonstrates the peace that comes along with Harry’s survivors finally reconciling

with one another and coming together in peace. Janice knows that Harry “made these messes but

never cleaned up after himself, even now, dead ten years, leaving it up to the living” (215). In

this sense “gladly” is used to signify the peace that comes along with taking care of the “messes”

that Harry left in his wake. For the national identity gladly can be interpreted to mean laying to

rest the 20th century, a time of remarkable cultural change in which all our main characters lived

through significant portions of. All of the people readers have grown to care about over the

course of decades can at last live in peace, love and acceptance that was indirectly brought about

by Harry posthumously by the sudden appearance of his lost daughter Annabelle.

The final words of the Rabbit Tetralogy and sequel Rabbit Remembered are significant

signs posted in the winding road of Harry’s life that remind us of where the man is in his

development as well as what stage of the American identity we find ourselves in. It has been

shown how the final words reflects these parallels and make it clear that Harry is indeed “a

representative creature” as Morley puts it, and that he does embody the America that existed in

the decades immediately following World War II. The man’s unquenchable thirst for freedom

and sometimes condemnable methods of attempting to achieve said freedom is emblematic of the

sweeping changes America experienced in the latter half of the 20th century as it sought to

continuously redefine itself in the faces of new challenges and circumstances. Harry too strived

to better himself and despite his sometimes selfish and abrasive behavior he believed in the

potential that things could be better than they are now and he was always searching for

something more, which most of the time he didn’t even know. Nevertheless Harry’s search must

Binkley 21

come to an end eventually, and the America he knew and loved must give way to something new

as well. Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, his legacy, and the time and place in which he lived and

thrived may have given way to new life, but he and the America he knew will continue to live on

in the collective imaginations of readers in perpetuity.

Binkley 22

Works Cited

Baddiel, David, and Jeffrey Meyers. "Judging John Updike." New Statesman. New Statesman, 1

May 2014. Web. 13 Sept. 2015. <http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/04/judging-john-

updike>. This article is a joint piece by two writers who take opposing views of

Updike’s legacy. One claims that Updike was the greatest writer in English of the last

century and the other claims that despite Updike’s prolific writing, he ultimately didn’t

have much to say and was a typical bland writer for The New Yorker. While this article

does not go into detail about the Rabbit series, it does inform my knowledge of Updike

himself and samples how he was received by critics. Some critics dismissed Updike

citing the volume of his work, implying that genius cannot have an output that great,

while other critics praised him and his stated goal to “give the mundane its beautiful

due.” Ultimately this source is useful to my project because it provides me with

necessary background information on Updike that I will use to contextualize my project.

Barnes, Julian. "Running Away." The Guardian. The Guardian, 16 Oct. 2009. Web. 13 Sept.

2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/oct/17/julian-barnes-john-updike-

rabbit>.

Boyagoda, Randy. "Updike's Affair With America." American Conservative 13.5 (2014): 40.

MasterFILE Premier. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

Morley, Catherine. "The Bard Of American Domesticity: John Updike Reconsidered In Terms

Of Transnationalism." European Journal Of American Culture 23.3 (2004): 187-200.

MLA International Bibliography. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. This article is one of the most

crucial I have found because it directly discusses how Rabbit the man develops parallel to

the American identity. The scope of this article spans the entire Rabbit series and is thus

Binkley 23

immensely valuable to me. Of particular importance here is the in depth discussion

Morley provides with regards to Harry’s stint as Uncle Sam in an Independence Day

parade in Rabbit at Rest. The commentary Morley provides here is exactly the kind of

thing I want to incorporate in my own project. The existence of this article also informs

me that I am not in completely uncharted territory with regards to scholarly pursuits

related to the Rabbit series. Other scholars have dealt with similar issues I wish to

explore in my capstone project and that is encouraging because I believe I can contribute

to the already established academic discussion of the Rabbit series.

Updike, John. Rabbit Redux. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.

Updike, John. "Rabbit Remembered." Licks of Love. New York: Random House, 2014. 185-374.

Print.

Updike, John. Rabbit at Rest. New York: Random House, 2012. Print. By far the most important

sources for my project are the five primary texts. All the other sources inform and assist

me with what I am doing or examining in these primary texts. I argue that the

development of Harry Armstrong is analogous to the evolving America of the latter half

of the 20th century. I frame this argument in relation to the final words of each Angstrom

story. Essentially I am arguing that the final words (all of them end with a one word

sentence) of each novel corresponds with both the state of Harry and his family in

addition to the state of affairs in American culture at the time generally.

Updike, John. Rabbit is Rich. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.

Updike, John. Rabbit, Run. New York: Random House, 2012. Print.

Binkley 24

Bibliography

Aarthy, R. "Collapse Of Values As Picturised In John Updike's Novels -- Rabbit, Run And

Rabbit Redux." Language In India 15.1 (2015): 1-12. Communication & Mass Media

Complete. Web. 9 Oct. 2015. This is one of the most directly applicable sources to my

capstone project. In this article, Aarthy argues that the first two Rabbit novels are

analogous to the changing values and society at large of mid-20th century America.

Specifically that Rabbit, Run is about Rabbit pursuing a natural impulse and Rabbit

Redux as the resulting collapse of traditional values and customs as a result of that earlier

pursuit. The author then links this principle as it applies to Rabbit with the nation as a

whole. There is not much detail in this article and it only covers the first two Rabbit

novels, but it is nonetheless an example of what I am going for with my own project and

will help guide me by suggesting what kinds of questions I should be asking or what

repeating patterns I should look out for in the other three Rabbit stories not featured in

this article.

Buchanan, Mark (Mark Aldham). "Rabbit Trails To God: John Updike Has Made A Career Of

Writing The Most Theological Novels In America." Christianity Today 47.7 (2003): 42-

44. ATLA Religion Database. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

Handlen, Zack. "Better Late Than Never?: Rabbit, Run by John Updike." The A.V. Club. The

A.V. Club, 6 Mar. 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2015. <http://www.avclub.com/article/better-late-

than-never-irabbit-runi-by-john-updike-24742>.

Pasewark, Kyle A. "The Troubles with Harry: Freedom, America, and God in John Updike's

Rabbit Novels." Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 1996: 1.

JSTOR Journals. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

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Pinsker, Sanford. "John Updike, Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, and I." The Sewanee Review 2009:

492. JSTOR Journals. Web. 9 Oct. 2015.

Scott, A.O. "Still Wild About Harry." The New York Times on the Web. New York Times, 19

Nov. 2000. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.

<https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/19/reviews/001119.19smcgt.html>. This is an

important source to me for several reasons. The first is that it is all about the Rabbit

series and does not veer off into any other territory such as a biography of Updike or a

discussion about what critics wrote about his work. Instead the author’s focus remains

squarely on reviewing the Angstrom saga as a whole, and in particular Licks of Love, the

collection of fiction in which the final Rabbit story was included. Also noteworthy about

this source is that it is the only one I could find which directly mentions the importance

of the single final words in each Rabbit story. Scott does not go into much detail about

this point but he does suggest that the final words can be considered an “almost

ideogrammatic summation of the moral state of the hero, his nation and, perhaps, his

creator.” This is the only source I have come across that directly addresses the final

words idea and it provides me with a good framework that I can expand upon for my

project.