52 pages • 1-hour read
Rabbit, Run
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Symbols & Motifs
Basketball
The sport of basketball functions as the novel’s most important symbol, representing a past state of grace and effortless perfection that Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom seeks to recapture. For Rabbit, his high school athletic career was a time of pure, unconflicted purpose, and the memory of this glory serves as a destructive standard against which he measures the compromises of his adult life. This aligns with the theme of The Trap of Nostalgia, as Rabbit is imprisoned by his own history. In the opening chapter, he joins a group of boys in an alley game, and the feel of the ball in his hands makes his “whole body go taut” as he feels like “he’s reaching down through years to touch this tautness” (6). This attempt to literally re-inhabit his past glory provides a temporary feeling of liberation but underscores his inability to function in the present. The boys he plays with have never heard of him, emphasizing that the world has moved on while he remains psychologically fixed in his adolescent triumphs. His past success has become a cage, preventing personal growth and ensuring his failure in adult responsibilities.
Rabbit’s obsession with his past athletic prowess poisons his perception of his present life, which he views as irredeemably “second-rate.” He explains his flight from his family to the Reverend Eccles by stating, “I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you’re first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate” (92). This confession reveals the core of his spiritual dissatisfaction. The clear rules, defined purpose, and public adoration of the basketball court stand in stark contrast to the ambiguous and messy demands of marriage and fatherhood. Basketball symbolizes an idealized world where Rabbit’s talents were perfectly expressed and rewarded, a purity he cannot find in the complexities of relationships and work. This romanticized memory explains both his immaturity and his constant impulse to escape any situation that does not offer the same feeling of perfect, first-rate validation. The symbol of basketball is thus the key to understanding Rabbit’s central conflict: his inability to transition from the heroic past to an ordinary present.
Television
The television is a pervasive symbol in Rabbit’s world, functioning as a modern, inadequate substitute for spiritual guidance and authentic human connection. Characters turn to its flickering screen for distraction, comfort, and a set of hollow, commercialized proverbs that mimic religious instruction. When Rabbit arrives home, Janice is watching the television “turned down low,” a passive presence that serves as a buffer for their strained relations (8). The set physically blocks the closet door, symbolizing how this constant media presence obstructs access to a deeper or more private self. It offers a steady stream of superficial entertainment and sales pitches that stand in for genuine communication and spiritual nourishment, reflecting a culture where consumerism has become the new opiate of the masses. The television’s glow provides a synthetic and temporary light, promising connection but ultimately reinforcing the isolation and spiritual emptiness that characters are trying to escape.
The apex of this symbol occurs as Rabbit watches the Mickey Mouse Club. The host, Jimmie, delivers a secular sermon, advising children to “Know Thyself” and develop their God-given talents. “God gives to each one of us a special talent,” Jimmie proclaims, co-opting religious language to dispense a simplistic, self-help doctrine perfectly aligned with the American dream (10). The message makes Rabbit and Janice “unnaturally still,” stirring a guilt that underscores the hollowness of the exchange. Rabbit, a salesman himself, recognizes the technique as a kind of charming fraud, noting Jimmie’s skill at “admitting it’s all a fraud but, what the hell, making it likable” (10). This moment reveals the central function of the television: to package and sell a palatable, commercialized version of meaning that offers no real grace. When Janice finally turns the set off, the “little hard star left by the current slowly dies,” symbolizing the artificial and fleeting nature of the comfort it provides, a stark contrast to any genuine spiritual illumination (11).
The Car
The car symbolizes the American promise of freedom through mobility, an ideal that proves to be a powerful illusion for Rabbit Angstrom. Initially, his 1955 Ford represents a means of escape, a vessel for a spontaneous and desperate flight from the “tightening net” of his domestic life (14). His journey south begins with a feeling of liberation as he “glides on down the twilight pike,” but this sense of freedom quickly sours into confusion and paranoia (22). The open road, rather than leading to a new state of grace, becomes a labyrinth. The advice he receives from a farmer is practical wisdom that directly contradicts Rabbit’s intuitive, spiritual quest: “The only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure out where you’re going before you go there” (26). This encounter highlights the conflict between Rabbit’s yearning for escape and the world’s insistence on purpose and direction, foreshadowing the inevitable failure of Rabbit’s flight.
On the road, Rabbit’s feelings of being trapped are exacerbated. He studies the tangle of routes and “sees the map whole, a net, all those red lines and blue lines and stars, a net he is somewhere caught in” (33). This realization that every road is simply another thread in an inescapable web prompts him to destroy the map, a futile gesture against his own entrapment. The car, which promised limitless possibility, has only led him into a deeper sense of being lost. His instinctive turn north back toward Mt. Judge marks his surrender to the forces of conformity and familiarity he was trying to flee. Ultimately, Rabbit leaves the car and its keys at the apartment, abandoning the primary symbol of his failed escape. This act signifies his resignation that true freedom cannot be found by simply driving away, as the traps he seeks to evade are not external but located deep within himself.
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