John Updike와 실존주의: Rabbit, Run을 중심으로

Abstract

An Existentialist Approach to John Updike’s Rabbit, RunByun, Jong-MinThe novels in John Updike’s so-called “Rabbit” tetralogy are Rabbit, Run(1960), Rabbit Redux(1971), Rabbit Is Rich(1981), and Rabbit at Rest(1990). Throughout the tetralogy, Updike presents American reality during the second half of the twentieth century through the protagonist's existential journey of life. It is generally agreed that Rabbit, Run is the most straightforward presentation of existential vision among the tetralogy. The main thematic concerns in the novel are largely related to such existential themes as religious doubt, rejection of systems, alienation, despair, nothingness, anguish, and absurdity.The protagonist of the novel, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, has lived to his own order and purpose based on inner imperatives instead of the traditional and ordinary values. As a result of his existential way of life, in which he searches only for true-self or self-reliance, Harry alienates himself both from his own self and from his environment. He is caught in a net of “existential circumstances,” so that he has to struggle continuously in order to escape from the net. It is not important whether Harry is a Christian saint or a secular saint or whether he is a hero or not. The significant thing is that he is going on his never-ending search for the “something” in the absurd world which forces him to accept second-best. What Harry finds through his journey of existential life is the importance of selfhood and the historicity of his own life. In other words, he becomes Camus’s superman through the action of transcendence.