52 pages • 1-hour read
Rabbit, Run
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Themes
Content Warning: This section of the guide features discussion of emotional abuse.
The Pursuit of Freedom and the Rejection of Responsibility
In John Updike’s Rabbit, Run, the pursuit of absolute freedom is portrayed as a desperate flight from the perceived confinements of adult life. The novel suggests this yearning for an unburdened existence is both a sign of immaturity and a spiritual crisis rooted in the perceived meaninglessness of modern domesticity. Protagonist Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom’s impulsive decision to abandon his family is presented as a destructive quest for an authentic self that he believes has been suffocated by responsibility.
Rabbit views his life as a series of enclosures. His decision to run is triggered by a moment of domestic friction, but it crystallizes a deeper feeling of entrapment. He senses he is in a “trap” (15), and the ordinary clutter of his home, from broken toys to stacks of newspapers, clings to his back like a “tightening net” (14). Marriage, fatherhood, and his job selling kitchen gadgets have become indistinguishable from the physical and emotional confinement he feels. His escape is a literal attempt to outrun this net of obligations. He drives south with the vague goal of reaching the Gulf of Mexico, seeking a landscape as open and undefined as the freedom he craves. This physical journey, however, mirrors his internal state. Lacking a map or a clear destination, he becomes lost in a network of roads and is ultimately forced to return, suggesting that freedom cannot be found by simply running away from responsibility.
This desperate search for freedom is inextricably linked to a nostalgic longing for the past. Rabbit’s identity is anchored to his former glory as a high school basketball star, a time when his life felt pure, ordered, and meaningful. The novel opens with him attempting to recapture this feeling by joining a group of boys in an alleyway basketball game, where for a moment he feels “liberated from long gloom” (7). This athletic past represents an idealized form of freedom governed by clear rules and culminating in definite victory, a stark contrast to the ambiguous struggles of his adult life. His pursuit of freedom is therefore regressive, an attempt to return to the simple triumphs of adolescence rather than forge a new, mature identity. The novel’s ambiguous ending, which finds Rabbit once again running toward an unknown future, underscores the cyclical and ultimately futile nature of his quest. He runs not toward genuine freedom but away from the responsibilities that define adult existence, ensuring he will remain trapped in a state of perpetual flight.
The Inadequacy of Modern Religion
John Updike’s Rabbit, Run explores the inadequacy of modern, institutionalized religion to address profound spiritual anxiety. The novel critiques the contemporary church by contrasting two ineffectual forms of ministry. Reverend Eccles represents a liberal, psychology-inflected Christianity that lacks spiritual authority, while Reverend Kruppenbach embodies a rigid, dogmatic faith that offers condemnation instead of guidance. The novel suggests that an authentic spiritual experience, which Rabbit intuitively seeks, cannot be found within the compromised structures of the mid-century American church.
Reverend Eccles’s ministry is characterized by a well-meaning but ultimately superficial therapeutic approach. He attempts to connect with Rabbit not as a spiritual guide but as a friend and counselor, employing friendly games of golf, employment, and psychological reasoning as his primary pastoral tools. Eccles sees Rabbit’s flight as a social problem to be managed through mediation and common sense, failing to recognize it as a symptom of a deeper spiritual crisis. Rabbit perceives Eccles’s efforts as an attempt to get him “out in the open where he can be manipulated” (108), sensing that the minister’s secular methods cannot touch the core of his distress. Eccles’s faith is a social lubricant, a tool for smoothing over life’s difficulties rather than confronting them, rendering him incapable of addressing the profound emptiness that haunts Rabbit.
In stark contrast to Eccles’s modernist approach is the rigid orthodoxy of the Lutheran minister, Fritz Kruppenbach. In a severe lecture, Kruppenbach condemns Eccles’s methods as mere “meddling” (146) and declares that a minister’s only role is to burn with the fire of Christ, not to act as an “unpaid doctor” (146). While this view rejects the secularization that defines Eccles’ pastoral approach, it offers no practical solace. Kruppenbach’s dogmatism is entirely detached from human suffering, demanding a faith that ignores the complexities of individual life. Neither man’s version of Christianity can accommodate Rabbit’s vague but persistent internal quest. He feels that “somewhere behind all this there’s something that wants me to find it” (110), a spiritual reality he cannot name. This intuitive search for grace exists entirely outside the purview of the institutional church, which has become incapable of guiding its flock through the wilderness of modern life.
The Trap of Nostalgia
Rabbit, Run critiques the romanticization of the past, portraying nostalgia as a destructive force that prevents personal growth and traps individuals in a cycle of immaturity. For Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, the past is not a source of wisdom but a seductive refuge from the challenges of the present. His obsession with recapturing the effortless glory of his high school basketball career prevents him from engaging with his adult responsibilities and ensures his failure in relationships, trapping him in a state of permanent adolescence.
Rabbit’s fixation on his past is both psychological and literal. The novel opens with him joining an alleyway basketball game, a direct attempt to relive the moments when he felt most alive and valued. During the game, he reflects on his high school stardom, when “everybody cheers” (6), and contrasts it with his present anonymity as just “one more piece of the sky of adults” (7). Rather than serve as a fond recollection of past times, this memory actively haunts Rabbit. His present life is constantly measured against and devalued by this idealized past. He explains his failures to Reverend Eccles by stating that after being “first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate” (92). This belief serves as his core justification for rejecting his roles as husband, father, and employee. By defining his present life as inherently “second-rate” (92), he absolves himself of the need to try.
The narrative repeatedly contrasts Rabbit’s vibrant, detailed memories of his athletic past with his detached and confused perception of his present. He can recall the precise feeling of a basketball in his hands and the specific triumphs of long-forgotten games, yet he finds himself frustrated by the simple logistics of his domestic life, feeling sickened by the “intricacy” of picking up his car and child (15). His escape from home is an attempt to flee this messy present and find a space that corresponds to the purity of his memories. However, his journey only leads him back to where he started. His inability to find fulfillment in the present is a direct result of his refusal to let go of the past. Updike suggests that this nostalgic impulse, while deeply human, becomes a prison. By clinging to the idealized boy he once was, Rabbit makes it impossible to become a man, ensuring that his life remains a series of frantic, circular escapes from a present he refuses to accept.
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