International Journal of Management and Social Sciences Research (IJMSSR)
Volume 5, No. 2, February 2016
ISSN: 2319-4421
Satirical Implications of Socio-Political and Theological Issues
in John Updike’s Rabbit Redux
Dr. T. Suneeti, Prof. of English, Hyd, Telangana. India
ABSTRACT
John Updike satirically inquires into the social changes of
the Post-Modern times according to theological and
political shifts in Rabbit Redux. The novel is an intense
examination of the American dream in the light of the
socio-political events of the Sixties. Updike makes the
individual event representative of national history and
making particular characters representative of the whole
class so that the novel becomes a paradigm of
contemporary American history.
Updike demonstrates how the inner struggle of oneself for
a meaningful life and purposive activity involves both pain
and loneliness. The painful acts which the protagonist,
Rabbit, indulges in are to relieve him from mental agony.
His impulsive behavior produces a feeling of hopelessness,
depression and frustration. He dreads the solitude as he
finds no one to understand his actions well. Pain,
suffering and loneliness are factors which cannot be
solved by technological sophistication. In the novel,
Updike implies that the presence of a divine order or
human love ought to solve such problems to some extent.
In Rabbit Redux, Updike outlines man's confinement in a
hollow and blank material world, where values have
disintegrated and socio-political aspects seem to exist in a
vacuum. At the same time, the characters are also
obsessed by the invisible entity that makes things happen
and is responsible for man's thirst for importance in a
world threatened by mortality and transience. They are
conscious of the edifying power of this invisible force and
believe that it offers a redemptive contact with reality.
The whole effort of these characters is, therefore, directed
towards a better and purposeful living.
Updike brings out the significance of the institution of
family as it is the first socializing agent, and attachment to
one's family is crucial for development of all relationships
in life. He captures the collapse of the family system in
the Sixties. Janice deserts her husband and son. The family
of Ollie and Peggy Foschnat is shattered. The novel
highlights Updike's deep concern with the family structure
that he thinks is being seriously threatened: "Who'll hold
families together, if everybody has to live. Living is a
compromise, between what you want and doing what
other people want" (R,Re:109).
The protagonist, Rabbit is passive, unreflective and
stunned by the social pressures in Redux. His wife, Janice,
on the contrary, is no more the “dumb”, “stupid” and
“unintelligent” girl of the first novel in the Rabbit Series,
Rabbit Run, . Certain unprecedented developments in the
American society, such as Feminism and the Sexual
Revolution, have changed her. She comes out of the
narrow domestic walls and takes up a job at her father's
office. Charged by the impact of Feminism and driven by
the American dream, she ventures out for new avenues.
This naturally involves breaking away from conventional
norms.
Janice decides to revitalize her sense of identity in her
affair with Charlie Stravros. But the possibility and
thought of marrying him “opens an abyss... A gate she had
always assumed gave on to a garden on to emptiness”
(R,Re:66). Janice suffers physical blow from Rabbit when
she denies her adultery but later both give in to the
changing world of moral ennui. Rabbit refuses to
encourage or force Janice to return. Ironically, he had fled
Janice earlier but with passing time her departure pushes
him into an empty world. Rabbit's domestic discord
springs from his inability to free himself from the
Hamletian dilemma. Janice explains Rabbit's dilemma to
Stavros that he thinks he is “missing something”
(R,Re:53). In fact, his search for something beyond is
replaced by a vague hope generated by American
pragmatism.
The established institutions of religion, family have
collapsed and the characters in Redux become incapable of
finding anything of value in the contemporary world.
They are devoid of myths and heroes. President Roosevelt
is described by Janice's father, as a crazy chap who made a
war to bring him out of the Depression. When Nelson
mentions watching a movie glamorizing John Kennedy's
war experiences, the grandfather spouts, "Pure
propaganda. They made that movie because old Joe
owned a lot of those studios" (R,Re:82). The old man
claims that LBJ went to Vietnam just to "get the coloreds
up into the economy." He condemns the events of
Chappaquidick, claiming that Kennedy got the girl
pregnant and then murdered her. America, he says, "is a
police state run by the Kennedys ... That family has been
out to buy the country since those Brahmins up in Boston
snubbed old Joe" (R,Re:81). Not even Jackie Kennedy is
salvaged - "Now they've got the young widow to marry a
i-Explore International Research Journal Consortium
www.irjcjournals.org
72
International Journal of Management and Social Sciences Research (IJMSSR)
Volume 5, No. 2, February 2016
rich Greek in case they run out of money. Not that she's
the goodie gumdrop the papers say ..." (R,Re:81). Rabbit's
father calls Nixon "a poor devil" who's trying his best, but
confides, "I don't have much use for Tricky Dicky and
never have ..." (R,Re:349). The patriotic Rabbit says of
Nixon: "Poor old Nixon, even his own commissions beat
on him ... He's just a typical flatfooted Chamber of
Commerce type who lucked his way into the hot seat and
is so dumb he thinks it's good luck. Let the poor bastard
alone" (R,Re:225). Mim, Rabbit's sister, is a symbol of
the new white generation that "lives on pollution" and is
"hard" as "cockroaches" (R,Re: 361). She entertains the
family by doing humorous take-offs on Disneyland
mechanical dummies representing Lincoln and
Washington.
This is the American scene, where the
characters are emotionally done up and devoid of belief in
anything.
The patriotism among the Americans in the Sixties is
reflected in Rabbit. He sticks to his traditional beliefs and
has faith in the supremacy of America. His patriotism has
replaced his earlier spiritual quest. He defends his
country's participation in Vietnam. He believes that his
nation's ultimate goal is to "make a happy rich country,
full of highways and gas stations” (R,Re:45). He
identifies himself with the flag, so that in one argument he
holds that the "treachery and ingratitude befouling the
flag" is at the same time "befouling him" (R,Re:45). He
has a flag decal on his car. He supports his country on
every aspect, from Indian massacres of the past to the
black riots of the present and he is skeptical of hippies,
demonstrators, negroes and all those who negate his
country's supremacy.
In Redux, Updike investigates into the terrible discord of
generations, the drugs and heedlessness of the counterculture. The upper middle class white radicals were also
responsible for the turbulence in the country. They
crowded the campuses, led demonstrations and formed
new drug cults in several urban areas, dismissed their
families and the materialism they practised. This group is
represented in the novel by Jill, who comes from a wealthy
family and opposes the Establishment: "I ran away from
it", she says, "I shit on it"(R,Re:207-208). She has
rejected both the "old God" and the "angry old
patriotism"(R,Re:228) to which Rabbit and the community
members are dedicated. She scorns the material world.
Further, she substitutes a vague new God perceived
through the hallucination of drugs.
As a Post-Modernist, Updike deals with “politics of
racism” (Hooks 627). He considers the plight of blacks in
Redux. Skeeter is a satirical portrait of the black militant
movement of the Sixties which involves protesting all
things that are white, particularly the white man's
hypocritical religion. Instead they believe in a new
religion, in which blackness will be worshipped. They
ISSN: 2319-4421
believe that they have a soul as they have religious vision
and an inner drive. On the other hand, the whites in the
novel have no soul. They lack religious vision as they
believe that beyond this world there is nothing but empty
space. Skeeter, who rages and calls upon God, is the
antithesis of the morally, emotionally dried-up whites. In
Redux, “the two races are contrasted in terms similar to
Eldridge Cleaver's „primeval mitosis‟ theory: whites have
become all sterile, bodiless intellect (technology), and
blacks are the physical - fertile, sexual” (Markle 157).
The political and theological aspects are inter-linked in
the novel. The white Christianity that Skeeter wishes
Rabbit to discard and the white man's faith in the
American dream are inextricably connected. For Rabbit,
the "Good Samaritan" and the "Statue of Liberty"
(R,Re:358) are the same things. So before preaching this
new religion, Skeeter tries to demythicize the fantasy of
the white American dream: "It was a dream", he tells
Rabbit, "it was a state of mind from those poor fool
pilgrims on" (R,Re: 242). But it is a dream that Rabbit
patriotically trusts. And Skeeter tries to change Rabbit's
notion saying, "You say America to you and you still get
bugles and stars but say it to any black or yellow man and
you get hate, right?" (R,Re:234). Skeeter and Jill try to
paint America in black to convince Rabbit that the white
industrial worker in this "dollar-crazy"(R,Re:232)
democracy is as miserable and enslaved economically, as
that of the blacks. In this context, Uphaus reviews:
The temporary alliance of the rich white radical
youth with the black militant to overthrow the
"System" - can be seen in Jill and Skeeter.
Events of the Sixties are the student revolts, the
predominantly white, upper-class youth who led
the SDS, and the conviction among black
militants that this disruption within the white
majority could only benefit the black revolution.
Stimulated by drugs and sexually liberated, the
young white radical (Jill) and the black militant
(Skeeter) live off the productiveness of the
working class (Rabbit), attempting to change his
conservatism while being sustained by his labor.
They urge him to endorse the overthrow of the
„System‟ (Uphaus 86 ).
Besides political turbulence, the social fabric collapsed
with the freedom movements of the Sixties. Parents who
are the key people in the child's life lost their position.
The parent's influence got declined by the new aspects of
social order over which they had no control. With the
changing decade women held on to their sexuality more
than to their roles of home maker, adding tension to their
burdened domestic lives.
The stable values lost
permanence in the twentieth century and made the parents
more self-absorbent and negligent about their children.
Caught in night parties and sexual escapades, the children
i-Explore International Research Journal Consortium
www.irjcjournals.org
73
International Journal of Management and Social Sciences Research (IJMSSR)
Volume 5, No. 2, February 2016
turn to drugs like the way Nelson did or become
vagabonds like Jill. Overwhelmed by frustrations of
modern life, the parents produced the most neurotic,
disjointed, alienated and drug-addicted generation.
In Redux, socio-theological aspects are inter-connected
too. Updike depicts the sad state of modern man
surrounded by the dread of mortality. He mourns the lack
of faith in God in the current society, which resulted in the
domestic tragedy of man. To Updike, man's highest goal
in life is to seek a way that leads to salvation. He feels
that there is no substitute to God that has the capacity to
offer man the security which he is in search of all his life.
Marriage, family, sensual pleasure, vocation and the
community do not resolve the desperate problems of man.
He believes that only a firm belief in the divine can
provide security. But the revival of this lost faith in man is
a complex question. He has grappled with the problem of
depicting these stifling and irreparable struggles by
evolving a unified thematic pattern that suits his purpose.
Redux depicts the psychical search for a solution to the
puzzling question concerning the purpose of human
existence. As Joseph Waldmeir pertinently observes,
"Updike's real concern is a critical examination of the
temptations, the problems, the questions, and the answers
as they conflict both inside and outside the protagonist,
alternately promising and denying solutions to the quest"
(Waldmeir 16).
As religion also failed to help him escape from the
anguish of the Sixties, Rabbit adopts a false faith. He
seeks refuge in sensual pleasure. He indulges in free love
with Ruth, Jill and Peggy Fosnacht, but does not find
eternal happiness or solace. His wife, Janice walks out of
him for a Greek, Stavros, in a desperate urge to seek
fulfillment and security in her otherwise blighted life. But
towards the end of the novel both Rabbit and Janice do not
find genuine relief in their affairs, so they return back to
the traditional institution of family. Ultimately, Rabbit
recognizes that the only security in life that can shield him
against loneliness is a "home". "It has been his salvation,
to be home again" (R,Re:349-350). This implies that one
can find immense pleasure by living within some
limitations. Gordon E.Slethavg, a reviewer, writes:
“Americans, implies Updike, need to learn that
unrestricted freedom cannot exist, and that when one is
most free, one may paradoxically become the most
enslaved and enslaving. Freedom is only valid when
hedged with rules and governed by responsibility”
(Slethavg 252). Further, what Jill brings with her is sex
without love which is pure horror as is proved in the end.
Thus, Updike implies that human love is the only
meaningful source of value in earthly life. And that love
can provide one with a basis for existence.
ISSN: 2319-4421
burning of his house, Rabbit along with his son, Nelson
goes to live with his parents. There he is troubled by a
new awareness of his ordinariness, his unimportance. His
street, for instance, seems "an ordinary street anywhere.
Millions of such American streets hold millions of lives
and let them sift through, and neither notice nor mourn,
and fall into decay, and do not even mourn their own
passing" (R,Re:373). He recalls nostalgically a lost time
when this street "excited Rabbit with the magic of his own
existence ... here the universe had centered" (R,Re:373).
His return to the past gives him a relative stability.
Rabbit's return to his childhood home marks a return to his
childhood habits. He finds in himself "an appetite for
boyish foods"(R,Re:350); he plays basketball. He finds the
warmth and security in his childhood home that eluded
him for long.
In Rabbit's return to the past, love is renewed. He
ultimately finds within himself grief for Jill and realizes
his former hardness towards her as a part of the "deadness"
into which he had retreated. His return is, his mother
claims, "worth a hundred doses" (R,Re:350) of the
medicine she takes, and her slow death is temporarily
delayed by human love. This last section, then, Uphaus
writes, "reasserts the value of human love, its power to
sustain life, if not to defeat death" (Uphaus 89).
Rabbit matures and his self-centeredness fades away, and
finally to Janice's question, "who do you think you are?"
Rabbit answers "Nobody"(R,Re:404). This realization in a
way eliminates the distance between him and Janice. The
dawning sense of casualty and the fear of emptiness unites
the pair to a secure place - Safe Heaven Hotel. There is a
final sense of acceptance as Janice almost accepts Rabbit‟s
sense of guilt: “Relax, not everything is your fault”
(R,Re:406) and he is led back to Janice as the title of the
novel announces. Every return provides new
psychological, mental and spiritual restoration. While
Rabbit's flight to Ruth and Janice to Stravros prove
disastrous and short-lived, their return becomes a triumph
of social and moral values, as they both emerge stronger
and competent enough to share their mutual responsibility.
In this context, Uphaus notes:
In describing a wistful retreat into the past, we
can see reflected the popularity, in the seventies,
of nostalgic films, old-fashioned clothing styles,
handicrafts, and natural foods. Moreover, like
Rabbit, the middle class early in the seventies
seemed to regain its equilibrium as the violence
of the sixties dissipated. The "silent majority",
reeling from a decade of destruction and
disorder, retreated to what seemed to be a
reaffirmation of family life and democratic ideals
(Uphaus 89).
Thus, Updike reinforces his faith in the institution of
family as it alone can provide stability to man. After the
i-Explore International Research Journal Consortium
www.irjcjournals.org
74
International Journal of Management and Social Sciences Research (IJMSSR)
Volume 5, No. 2, February 2016
Thus, Updike reflects on the quest for human stature,
importance and responsibility. He observes that without
the supernatural the natural is a pit of horror. He also
believes that all problems are basically insoluble and that
faith is a leap out of total despair and misery. He finds that
materialism has stripped man of his faith in higher values.
Man cannot make genuine advancement by having his
belief in blind forces and dead matter. Man's actions are
good and bad only if there is a divine force to judge.
Without belief in the supernatural, people tend to grope in
darkness, despair and misery. He recognizes that man
cannot be isolated form society. He cannot be his own
provider, the ultimate source of his own well-being. I
conclude with the comment of Tanvir Fatima:
ISSN: 2319-4421
and expiatory. But the self has to be directed
towards such a penitential path. The search for
the path that redeems a soul - that is Updike's
quest (Fatima 90-91).
REFERENCES
… in Updike's fiction the human reality is
composed of loss of faith, anxiety, loneliness,
and nostalgia. He believes that a divinely
ordained milieu and set up is vital for saving the
individual from becoming a victim of his own
crippling desires. In other words, such maladies
can be cured through a participation in certain
sets of beliefs that guarantee redemption and
deliverance.
The Christian faith with its
emphasis on penance and atonement is cathartic
i-Explore International Research Journal Consortium
[1] Updike, John. 1971. Rabbit Redux. New York:
Alfred A.Knopf.
[2] Fatima, Tanvir. 1979. The Burden of Redemption: A
Study of John Updike’s Major Fiction. University
of Hyderabad.
[3] Markle, Joyce B. 1973. Fighters and Lovers:
Theme in the novels of John Updike. New York:
New York University Press.
[4] Slethavg, Gordon E. 1982. Critical Essays on John
Updike. Editor William R. Macnaughton. Boston,
Massachusetts : G.K.Hall and Co.
[5] Uphaus, Suzanne Henning. 1980. John Updike.
New York : Ungar Publishing Co.
[6] Waldmeir, Joseph. 1974. “It‟s the Going That‟s
Importantr, Not the Getting There: Rabbit‟s
Questing Non-Quest.” Modern Fiction Studies.
West Lafayette, IN. 20, pp. 13-27.
www.irjcjournals.org
75