Rabbit, Run

Study Guide by Course Hero

TENSE
What's Inside Rabbit, Run is narrated in the present tense, except for
flashbacks, which are told in past tense.

j Book Basics ................................................................................................. 1 ABOUT THE TITLE

The protagonist of Rabbit, Run, Harry Angstrom, is a former
d In Context ..................................................................................................... 1 high-school basketball star whose teammates called him
Rabbit—an acknowledgement of his speed and nervous agility.
a Author Biography ..................................................................................... 4
Now in his mid-20s, unhappy in his marriage and dreary job,
h Characters .................................................................................................. 6 Rabbit finds solace in running through town to clear his head
and in running away from the life in which he feels trapped. As
k Plot Summary ............................................................................................ 11 it is a rabbit's nature to run from predators—and to have
extreme sexual energy—it is Rabbit Angstrom's nature to run
c Section Summaries ............................................................................... 19
from responsibilities, unpleasantness, or confrontation.

g Quotes ........................................................................................................ 33

l Symbols ..................................................................................................... 36
d In Context
m Themes ....................................................................................................... 37

e Suggested Reading .............................................................................. 41

The American Dream
The contradictions of the 1950s are embodied in the
j Book Basics juxtaposition of the Cold War's (1947–91, non-combat
ideological war between the United States and the Soviet
AUTHOR Union over the spread of communism and nuclear proliferation)
John Updike threat of nuclear annihilation with a set of ideals known
popularly as the American dream. This image has its roots in
YEAR PUBLISHED the Declaration of Independence's assertion of the
1960 "unalienable rights" to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The philosophy behind the dream is that happiness is freely
GENRE
available to anyone who works hard enough. Society is not a
Drama, Fiction
fixed hierarchy but a flexible one, and American self-reliance
PERSPECTIVE AND NARRATOR can carry anyone to the top, regardless of the economic or
Part 1 of Rabbit, Run is told by a third-person narrator who social position of their birth. The expectation for each
follows Rabbit's perspective and has access to Rabbit's generation was greater prosperity and economic success than
internal experience. In Parts 2 and 3 the narration sometimes the previous one.
follows other characters' perspectives, presenting their
In the 1950s this translated into the possibility of a
thoughts and internal monologues.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
comfortable, middle-class life for everyone: home and car
ownership, access to higher education, and job security with
good benefits. Because the American dream equates
happiness with economic prosperity, the road to happiness is
the embrace of consumer capitalism (economic system
characterized by private ownership of goods). Rabbit scoffs at
this notion in Part 1, Section 1, when Jimmy the Mousketeer
comes on the television and tells the children watching that
self-knowledge is the road to happiness. Rabbit knows that
this is merely a pretense and that the real message of his
culture is to achieve happiness through materialism: "Fraud
makes the world go round. The basis of our economy," he
reflects cynically before connecting his own employment as a
demonstrator of the MagiPeel kitchen gadget with the
fraudulent idea of materialistic happiness: "Vitaconomy, the
modern housewife's password, the one-word expression for
economizing vitamins by the MagiPeel Method."
Though Rabbit rejects this materialistic American dream even
as he takes part in it, the government and the business sector
worked hand-in-hand to construct the infrastructure that
would make it possible, shifting both the American landscape
and way of life. In 1956 President Eisenhower signed a bill that
would create a 41,000 mile-long system of interstate highways.
At the same time, automobile manufacturers began turning out
passenger cars in record numbers, and by 1960 the number of
two-car families had risen to 20 percent. Suburbs began to
appear at the edges of cities, filled with quickly built, cheap
tract housing meant to bring home ownership to the average
American. These conditions are all reflected in the text of
Rabbit, Run. The town of Mt. Judge is a suburb of the city of
Brewer, and Rabbit lives with Janice in a tract house there.
Additionally, Rabbit's spur-of-the-moment road trip in Part 1,
Section 1, is made possible by the rise of the interstate
highway system and the increasing prevalence of private car
ownership.
This increase in construction and manufacturing led to a rise in
employment and wages. In this new prosperity, Americans had
more access to disposable income to buy consumer
goods—such as the television that Janice Springer turns to for
comfort and the MagiPeel kitchen gadget that Rabbit
promotes for a living. Rising prosperity also meant a rise in
birth rates and a subsequent emphasis on youth culture. The
rise of consumerism, mass media and advertising, and youth
culture are elements of Rabbit, Run. On his road trip, Rabbit
listens to the radio and is exposed to many catchy
advertisements for consumer goods as well as domestic and
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In Context 2
international news reports. In the opening pages of Rabbit,
Run, Rabbit and Janice watch The Mickey Mouse Club, a
children's variety program begun in 1955 that featured a group
of adult and child actors known as "Mouseketeers." Updike
shows the children's program as a means of promoting the
American dream of material comfort and rising social status to
the younger generation. The fact that Janice and Rabbit watch
a children's show reflects their individual idealization of their
own lost youth—a major theme in the novel.
Social Repression in 1959
McCarthyism
As the United States and the Soviet Union vied to develop the
most devastating nuclear weapons during the Cold War,
anxiety penetrated the lives of ordinary Americans, manifesting
itself in the Red Scare of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the early
1950s. With its groundless accusations and hearings
conducted against those accused of Communist subversion
against Americans, McCarthyism created an attitude of
paranoia, while advocating conformity as a safe social choice.
In 1957, two years before Rabbit, Run takes place, American
anxiety sharpened when the Soviets sent a satellite into outer
space. The release of the satellite Sputnik seemed to indicate
the Soviets led the United States in nuclear capabilities. These
political conditions were presented to the American public
alongside the message that a stable, traditional, nuclear family,
with traditional gender roles firmly in place, was the root of
national security. The anxiety and meaninglessness that
permeates Rabbit Angstrom's life reflects the national mood of
paranoia, as does the condemnation that Rabbit, Janice, and
Ruth face by others for failing to uphold the patriotic norm of
the nuclear family. Unable to conform, Rabbit deals with his
anxiety by running—literally and figuratively.
Gender Relations
Despite the emphasis on the nuclear family, postwar conditions
gave rise to new patterns of gender relations and sexuality.
Premarital sex and birth rates rose as a consequence of easier
access to automobiles. Teenagers could drive away from their
homes and engage in sexual behaviors in the privacy of cars.
Rabbit Angstrom stumbles across one such "lovers' lane"
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
during his trip to West Virginia.
Although the prevailing cultural message was that women
should be happy homemakers, one third of the labor force was
made up of women, many of whom had chosen to keep their
jobs after the birth of their children. For those women whose
daily lives were tied to domesticity, the image of the happy
housewife often fell flat—and painfully so. These expectations,
and the consequences of both conforming to them and failing
to conform to them, are seen in the characters of Janice
Springer and Ruth Leonard. In Part 2, Section 10, Janice
Springer's internal monologue reflects her disappointed
expectations that moving out of her critical mother's house into
her own home with her own family would bring her a sense of
security: "She thought when she got a husband it would be all
over ... She would be a woman with a house on her own," but in
reality, "she was still little clumsy dark-complected Janice
Springer and her husband was a conceited lunk who wasn't
good for anything."
The sexual politics of the period are especially evident in the
character of Ruth Leonard. Unmarried and childless, Ruth
loses her job as a stenographer after rumors about her
sexuality spread. To support herself, she begins accepting
money from men in exchange for sex. Though Ruth is one of
the more moral characters in the novel, she is judged harshly,
even by those who enjoy her sexuality, such as Rabbit, who
asks her, "Were you really a whore?"
The discussions between Rabbit and Ruth regarding birth
control and abortion reflect the controversy and typical male
attitudes surrounding them during the 1950s. Rabbit's attitude
is anti-birth control and anti-abortion, though he lacks the
financial means or social position to responsibly raise a child
with Ruth. Rabbit's attitudes are congruent with the laws and
norms of the day, which Updike criticizes through his handling
of the sexuality of Janice, Ruth, and Rabbit. In her first sexual
encounter with Rabbit, Ruth attempts to use a diaphragm to
protect herself from disease and pregnancy, but she refrains
from doing so after Rabbit's vehement protest against the
"alien" device. The diaphragm rose to popularity in the late
1930s, after a 50-year federal ban on birth control was lifted.
The birth control pill, which would allow women to control their
reproductive capacities without their partners' knowledge or
consent, was not approved by the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) until 1960, and access to it was not
federally protected until 1972. As a consequence of not using
her diaphragm, Ruth becomes pregnant and schedules—but
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In Context 3
does not undergo—an abortion. Abortion had been a legal and
common procedure until it was banned in 1880. Between then
and the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision that made
abortion legal at a federal level, women who could afford to do
so continued to have abortions, but often in unsafe conditions,
either self-administered or done by incompetent physicians.
Racism
The American dream was not in fact meant for everyone.
Some people were excluded due to the widespread racism and
gathering discontent that erupted as the Civil Rights movement
(1954–68, struggle for justice and equality under the law for
African-Americans). While standards of living rose for both
whites and blacks, wages for blacks remained half of what they
were for whites. In Rabbit, Run racist language and ideas are
sometimes embedded into Rabbit's thoughts as well as into the
speech of Marty Tothero, reflecting prevailing attitudes of
white Americans and the underlying inequality that marked the
lives of blacks and other minorities.
At the Chinese restaurant, Tothero refers to the Chinese
waiter as "our young Confucian," language that today would be
considered inappropriate and offensive but that goes
unnoticed by Tothero's companions. Later, Rabbit doesn't want
to go to Club Castanet, because of its location on "the Italian-
Negro-Polish side" of Brewer. He feels that it is inappropriate
for his sister Miriam to be there and tells her so. Additionally,
Janice Springer, a white woman, suffers from her mother's
disapproval and her own self-loathing because of her
supposedly too-dark complexion. By having the immoral
characters Rabbit and Tothero subtly convey racist
assumptions, and by making the color of Janice's skin a source
of conflict with her cruel mother, Updike illustrates, and
thereby criticizes, the thorough penetration of racist ideas into
the American psyche.
Religiosity in the 1950s
The characters in Rabbit, Run reflect a variety of religious and
spiritual orientations, from Ruth Leonard's atheism to Rabbit
Angstrom's noncommittal flirtations with Christianity to
Lutheran minister Kruppenbach's deep devotion to his
orthodox faith. Updike's use of religious and spiritual elements
in the text reflects the strong presence of religion in American
culture during the decade and also the author's own attitudes
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
toward religion. In the 1950s church attendance was packaged
as part of the ideal of family values and normalcy. Toward the
end of the decade, roughly half of all Americans were in church
on any given Sunday.
Following his first night with Ruth Leonard, Rabbit Angstrom
looks out her window and wistfully watches the churchgoers
entering the church in their fine Sunday clothes. He longs to be
a part of that comforting group. Even as church attendance
rose, religious expression itself had become increasingly
secularized. Mainstream values were concerned with
participation in religion rather than the inner transformation of
the individual through faith. This is demonstrated in the
character of Jack Eccles, the minister who himself does not
believe, but who maintains active social involvement in the lives
of his parishioners, as well as in Rabbit's judgment about the
social value of various denominations: "the Springers were
Episcopalians, more of the old bastard's social climbing,
everyone else was Lutheran or Reformed if they were
anything." Updike criticizes religion's failure to adequately
address human spirituality and to provide a meaningful,
compelling framework for understanding through these
elements, as well as by portraying Rabbit as bored, irritated,
and distracted during his sole instance of church attendance.
Updike's Style in Rabbit, Run
In Rabbit, Run, meaning is conveyed not just through content,
but through Updike's style. Style and content often mirror each
other, with sentence length reflecting the action or emotional
state of a character. Updike uses long sentences composed of
numerous run-on clauses as Rabbit's excitement builds. These
are often followed by short, terse statements, as the episode is
resolved or Rabbit's judgment is put forth. For example,
remembering his encounter with a Texas prostitute, Rabbit's
thoughts run into one another, the sensory details spilling out
between the commas: "So that when it was over he was hurt to
learn, from the creases of completion at the sides of her lips
and the hard way she wouldn't keep lying beside him but got
up and sat on the edge of the metal-frame bed looking out the
dark window at the green night sky, that she hadn't meant her
half." The terse resolution, which contains an ironic judgment,
follows: "Sweet woman, she was money."
Another notable stylistic element is the shifts in narrative
perspective. Part 1 of the text is narrated in the third person,
but entirely from Rabbit's perspective. In Part 2, however, the
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Author Biography 4
perspectives of other major characters—Jack Eccles, Ruth
Leonard, and Janice Springer—are put forth. This shift creates
complexity in the novel by placing Rabbit's crisis, which is the
novel's subject, in its social context. Additionally, there are
occasional narrative shifts into the second person. One such
shift occurs shortly after the novel opens, in Part 1, Section 1,
as Rabbit recalls playing basketball as a youth: "You climb up
through the little grades and then get to the top and everybody
cheers." This reflects Rabbit's distance from but also emotional
attachment to the subject of his thoughts, lending it the
authenticity of internal monologue.
In Part 2, Section 10, Updike gives the reader a sentence that is
not only exceedingly long, but one that shifts back and forth
from a third-person presentation of Janice Springer's internal
monologue to second person. The 90-word sentence reveals
Janice's anger, hurt, and disgust following being sexually
violated by Rabbit: "You can feel in their fingers if they're
thinking about you and tonight Harry was at first and that's why
she let him go on." In this sentence, which is nearly bare of
punctuation, Updike conveys not only the fact that Janice is
drunk, but that she is wrestling with complex and distressing
emotions.
a Author Biography
Early Years and First
Publications
John Updike was born on March 18, 1932, in Reading,
Pennsylvania. When Updike was 13, the family moved to his
grandparents' farm, which was just 11 miles from Shillington in
the same state. His father taught at the local high school and
Sunday school at their church; his mother also wrote. Updike,
an only child likely influenced by her, began composing light
verse and short prose and developed an interest in art, drawing
cartoons while still at school.
Updike went on to Harvard on scholarship, where he studied
English and contributed cartoons and humorous stories to the
famous Harvard Lampoon magazine. He spent his summers at
home, working as a copy boy at the local newspaper. He won a
fellowship to go to Oxford, England, where he studied at the
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. He graduated from
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Harvard in 1954.
In summer 1954 The New Yorker magazine published first one
of his poems and then one of his short stories—the first two of
his many writings that would appear in its pages and link his
name to the magazine's. After returning from Oxford, Updike
was a staff writer at The New Yorker for two years, working on
the magazine's "Talk of the Town" section, where he wrote
weekly short pieces about his observations of life in New York
City that were all published anonymously. By then he and his
wife had two children, and Updike decided to leave the
distractions of the big city. He moved to Ipswich,
Massachusetts, where he devoted himself full-time to his
writing, becoming one of the best-known American authors of
the late 20th century. Updike's first book was published in
1958; it was a poetry collection called The Carpentered Hen
and Other Tame Creatures. His first novel, The Poorhouse Fair,
published the same year, examines political and religious
issues during a summer fair at a home for the aged.
Updike's Writing
The small towns and rural locations Updike knew so well
inspired the settings in his fiction, as did his middle-class
upbringing. This can be seen in "A&P," which is one of his
earlier short stories. The story is set north of Boston in a small
town in the late 1950s. Its teenage narrator responds to the
negative reactions toward three bathing suit-clad girls on the
part of his conservative coworker, customers, and ultimately
the store manager.
Despite his many books of poetry and his nonfiction articles
and books, Updike is probably best known for his fiction, which
details the sufferings of average American males with regard
to religion, sexuality, and familial obligations. In addition to
many short stories, he wrote 22 novels. He won numerous
awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (twice—first in
1981 and again in 1991), the National Medal of Art (1989), and
the National Medal for the Humanities (2003).
Rabbit, Run and the Rabbit
quartet
Updike began developing the character that would become
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Author Biography 5
Rabbit Angstrom years before he wrote Rabbit, Run. In a poem
published in his first book, The Carpentered Hen and Other
Tame Creatures, he first explored the idea of a character
whose glory days on the high school basketball team are
behind him. "Ex-Basketball Player" describes the life of former
basketball star Flick Webb, who now works at a gas station
and spends his free time hanging around a diner, drinking and
smoking. Although Flick Webb bears little actual resemblance
to Rabbit Angstrom, the protagonist of a subsequent short
story, "Ace in the Hole," will seem familiar to readers of Rabbit,
Run. Feeling constricted by his life, Fred "Ace" Anderson longs
to recapture the feeling he had on the basketball court. In
writing Rabbit, Run, Updike expanded "Ace in the Hole" both
structurally and thematically. Instead of one narrative point of
view and attention to Ace's family dynamics, Rabbit, Run uses
multiple points of view and explores the dynamics of a larger
society, not just Rabbit's family. It also uses present-tense
narration—a radical choice at the time for a full-length work.
As Updike wrote Rabbit, Run, he kept in mind Jack Kerouac's
On the Road (1957), detailing the author's underground
adventures with his friends as they travel around the United
States. Updike wanted to counter Kerouac's frenzied
glorification of travel-as-quest with a "realistic demonstration
of what happens when a young American family man goes on
the road."
Upon the publication of Rabbit, Run in 1960, the New York
Times review called it "moving and often brilliant" and "a tender
and discerning study of the desperate and hungering in our
midst." The reviewer especially praised Updike's prose style,
writing that the then-28-year-old author had "a knack of tilting
his observations just a little, so that even a commonplace
phrase catches the light." With Rabbit, Run, Updike began
acquiring his reputation as one of the finest modern American
novelists. However, the text that went to press in 1960 was not
the novel as Updike had intended it. His publisher, Alfred A.
Knopf, refused to print the book unless Updike removed
certain explicit sexual material then considered offensive.
Updike felt his artistic integrity was at stake but consented to
Knopf's demand to have the novel appear in print. Within a few
years, however, the cultural climate had shifted enough for
Updike to reintroduce what he'd been forced to remove.
Updike made the decision to continue to chronicle the life of
Rabbit Angstrom and his family. Over the next 30 years,
Updike produced three more novels, each a decade apart,
collectively known as "the Rabbit quartet": Rabbit Redux (1971),
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Rabbit Is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990). Rabbit at Rest,
which finds 55-year-old Rabbit Angstrom at the end of his life
as he grows spiritually and physically fatigued, was praised
upon its publication by The New York Times as "a rich and
rewarding novel" that provides an enlightening look at "the
vicissitudes of middle-class life in America today." By writing
one Rabbit novel roughly every 10 years, at the start of each
new decade, Updike succeeded in chronicling not only Rabbit's
evolution but also a sizeable chunk of American history and the
evolution of the American society that is Rabbit's setting. For
this achievement, Updike was recognized with the Pulitzer
Prize in 1982 for Rabbit Is Rich and again in 1990 for Rabbit at
Rest. Rabbit Is Rich also won the 1982 National Book Award. In
1995 the Rabbit quartet was collected and published as the
single volume Rabbit Angstrom. Updike surprised readers by
reviving the series again with Rabbit Remembered (2001), a
novella that examines the lives of the other characters after
Rabbit has died.
Death and Legacy
Updike's last book was published after his death; it was
another collection of poems, this time centered on the theme
of his own mortality—Endpoint, and Other Poems
(2009)—which he worked on up until the last few weeks of his
life. Updike died in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, of lung
cancer on January 27, 2009. In a 2004 essay Updike explained
his sole duty as a writer: "to describe reality as it had come to
[him]—to give the mundane its beautiful due." For Updike it was
the middle of any experience rather than the extremes which
had the most meaning. Updike took seriously this duty to write
of everyday life realistically, producing more than 50 popularly
read books during the course of his career. Nonetheless,
Rabbit, Run is still considered by many to be his finest work.
h Characters
Rabbit Angstrom
As a child Rabbit was careful, diligent, and sensitive.
Determined to excel in basketball, he devoted himself,
beginning at age 12, to practicing the sport. He was adored by
an overprotective mother and younger sister. Rabbit's success
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Characters 6
and happiness peaked during high school when his skill and
speed earned him his nickname. His coach, Marty Tothero, led
him to believe in his own greatness. At the core of Rabbit's
personality is his belief in and yearning for some aspect of the
divine; playing basketball was, for Rabbit, a transcendent
spiritual experience. In contrast, his life after high school is dull.
Rabbit has not matured into a responsible adult. Concerned
only with his own feelings and experience, he lacks not only
empathy but basic consideration for others. Obsessed with
sex, Rabbit objectifies and seeks to dominate women. His
response to his insecurity and unhappiness is to run—literally
and figuratively. Missing what gave him glory in his youth,
Rabbit is on a continual quest for fulfillment. As the novel
progresses, Rabbit's frustrated search leads him to turn more
inward. Instead of growing, Rabbit becomes more deeply
entrenched in his flaws until he finally rejects the entire
external world and runs again.
Janice Springer
Janice's anxiety and low-self-esteem began when she was a
girl. Although her father provided material comforts, she was
never able to please her demanding mother. Janice has always
felt deeply alone. She hoped her marriage to Rabbit would
bring her the confidence and happiness she lacked growing up.
Janice deals with her unhappiness and her psychologically
abusive husband by watching television and drinking alcohol,
which Rabbit resents and later encourages. Janice shoulders
the blame for Rabbit's actions. Left alone, she resolves either
to forgive Rabbit and be a better wife or to live happily without
him, but she is unable to do either. After the birth of their
second child, Rabbit returns briefly, offers little support,
encourages her to drink, forces sex on her, and flees again,
leaving her with an infant and a toddler to care for. In a frenzied
bout of cleaning brought on by her mother's imminent and
unwanted visit—and expected disapproval—Janice accidentally
drowns her infant daughter in the bathtub.
Ruth Leonard
When Ruth meets Rabbit, she is working as a prostitute but
tells him she does "nothing." She has no religious beliefs and
accepts life without asking why things are as they are. Since
she was a teenager, society has punished her for embracing
her sexuality. When rumors led to her being fired from her job
Rabbit, Run Study Guide Characters 7

as a stenographer, she fell into accepting money for sex. A admits her atheism and knows Jack shares most of it, but she
large, stocky woman who enjoys cooking and reading and is frustrated by his attempts to have people think otherwise.
wears heavy makeup, Ruth is frank and assertive, although she When she invites Rabbit for coffee after church, his refusal
often submits to Rabbit. Aware of his egotism and selfishness, indicates he believes the invitation is a sexual come-on, and
she nevertheless likes him because he hasn't given up on life. she slams the door in his face.
When she discovers she is pregnant—Rabbit has insisted on no
birth control—Ruth struggles with the emotional resolve to
follow through with her plans for an abortion when she realizes
Rabbit is not about to leave Janice to marry her.

Jack Eccles
Although Jack Eccles has devoted his life to the ministry, he is
unsure about whether God exists. Lacking faith, he focuses his
energy on solving the personal problems of his parishioners.
One of those problems forces Eccles to meet with Rabbit to
bring him back to his wife and to find spiritual fulfillment.
However, Eccles finds himself wanting Rabbit's friendship and
in reverse of his position, even his spiritual guidance. Eccles
takes credit for Rabbit's return to Janice. However Eccles has
done nothing significant: Rabbit's stay with Janice is short-
lived. Tormented by insecurity, he knows his lack of faith
makes him a fraud, but socializing with parishioners and acting
as a relationship interventionist makes him feel needed.

Marty Tothero
Before a sex scandal caused him to lose his position, Marty
Tothero was Rabbit's basketball coach and, therefore, an
important part of Rabbit's glory days. The day after leaving
Janice, Rabbit seeks out Tothero for advice, but the coach is
now an incoherent drunk, out of touch with reality and widely
mocked or ignored. Tothero later has two strokes and cannot
move or speak when Rabbit sees him in the hospital. After
Rebecca June's death, Tothero, having regained mobility, has
no guidance or condolences but wants Rabbit to confirm the
tragedy is a result of Tothero's unheeded advice.

Lucy Eccles
Lucy Eccles married Jack when he was a young, lively
seminary student. When he became a minister, she watched
his good humor and optimism disappear as he began to spend
most of his time working with his parishioners. Lucy freely

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide Characters 8

Character Map

Janice Springer
Alcoholic, depressed woman;
accidentally drowns infant
daughter

Family
minister

Spouses

Jack Eccles Ruth Leonard

Young Episcopal clergyman; Frank, intelligent prostitute;
Unsuccessful
does good works but becomes pregnant with
spiritual adviser
has little faith Rabbit's child
Rabbit Angstrom
Lovers
Disappointed, restless,
former high school star;
seeks spiritual and
sexual fulfillment

Spouses
Object
of desire
High school
basketball
coach

Lucy Eccles Marty Tothero

Self-assured woman; Drunk, incoherent,
prefers Freud to religion self-loathing man

Main Character

Other Major Character

Minor Character

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Full Character List
Character Description
At 26, high school basketball star
Rabbit (Harry) Angstrom finds himself
trapped in a loveless marriage and
Rabbit
boring job. Athletic and swift, his
Angstrom
natural instinct is to run—from
problems, confrontations, and his
mundane life.
Quiet, sensitive Janice Springer
Angstrom is a timid, passive, unhappy
Janice Springer woman in an unhappy marriage who
fills her days watching television and
getting drunk.
An atheist and a prostitute, Ruth
Leonard is an intelligent and
Ruth Leonard
passionate woman who refuses to
conform to 1950s morals.
Jack Eccles is a young Episcopal
minister who questions his faith and
Jack Eccles the existence of God. He becomes
more involved with his parishioners'
lives than with his spiritual calling.
A has-​been, Marty Tothero is Rabbit's
high school basketball coach,
Marty Tothero
responsible for contributing to
Rabbit's ego.
Lucy Eccles is an atheist with
leanings toward a Freudian
psychoanalytical view of the world.
Lucy Eccles Rather cynical, she seems out of
place in a 1950s setting, her attitudes
being more in tune with those of the
coming 1960s.
Allie Allie is a former lover of Ruth Leonard.
Earl Angstrom is Rabbit's father. A
printer by trade, he considers Rabbit
Earl Angstrom
his enemy for the way he has treated
Janice.
Rabbit's overindulgent mother, Mary
Mary Angstrom Angstrom wields the most power over
Rabbit.
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Characters 9
Miriam
Miriam Angstrom is Rabbit's younger
sister. She idolized him when she was
Angstrom
a child but no longer does.
Nelson Nelson Angstrom is the toddler son of
Angstrom Rabbit and Janice.
Rebecca June Angstrom is the infant
daughter of Rabbit and Janice. The
Rebecca June novel chronicles her birth at the
Angstrom beginning of June and accidental
death at her mother's hands a few
weeks later.
Rabbit and Janice's elderly neighbor,
Miss Arndt detains Rabbit in
Miss Arndt conversation as he attempts to leave
unnoticed, thus allowing Jack Eccles
to intercept him.
Sister Bernard is the nun working at
Sister Bernard the front desk of St. Joseph's hospital,
where Rebecca June is born.
The Bolgers are Mary and Earl
Angstrom's neighbors. Mary envies
The Bolgers
the Bolgers' half of the lot, which
contains a small yard.
Dr. Crowe is the obstetrician who
Dr. Crowe attends the birth of Rebecca June
Angstrom.
Bonnie Eccles is Jack and Lucy's one-
Bonnie Eccles
year-​old daughter.
Joyce Eccles is Jack and Lucy's
three-​year-​old daughter whose
Joyce Eccles
questions about death Lucy can't
answer.
The farmer at the hardware store/gas
station fills Rabbit's tank. Rabbit
Farmer at
resents him for not having the right
hardware store
map and for telling him he needs to
figure out where he's going.
The toddler son of Janice's friend
Billy Fosnacht Peggy, Billy Fosnacht is Nelson
Angstrom's playmate.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Janice's close friend and Billy's
Peggy mother, Peggy Fosnacht provides
Fosnacht emotional support for Janice when
Rabbit leaves her.
Eccles's paternal grandfather was a
liberal Episcopal bishop and self-
Jack Eccles's identified "Darwinian Deist." He
grandfather doesn't appear in the novel, but
Rabbit looks at photographs hanging
in Eccles's house.
Rabbit's maternal grandfather, who
Rabbit's doesn't appear in the novel, lived with
grandfather his family when Rabbit was young.
Rabbit recalls the old man's kindness.
Rabbit's former teammate, Ronnie
Harrison is an old friend and lover of
Ruth Leonard. Mean spirited and
Ronnie Harrison offensive, he provokes Rabbit's
jealousy, which prompts Rabbit to
demand oral sex from Ruth as a kind
of "get-​even."
Jimmie is an adult Mouseketeer who
appears on The Mickey Mouse Club,
which Janice and Rabbit watch at the
Jimmie the beginning of the novel. Jimmie uses
Mouseketeer songs and expressions about life and
Christianity to teach children, and
Rabbit regards him as a religious
fraud.
A friend of Ruth Leonard, Margaret
Kosko is a prostitute whom Marty
Margaret Kosko Tothero pays for sex. Rabbit dislikes
her because she reminds him of
Janice.
Fritz Kruppenbach is the long-​time
minister of the Lutheran church,
which Rabbit's parents attend. When
Fritz Eccles seeks his advice, Kruppenbach
Kruppenbach criticizes him for meddling in others'
lives instead of doing his duty, which
is to exemplify faith for his
congregation.
Mrs. Mrs. Kruppenbach is Fritz
Kruppenbach Kruppenbach's wife.
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Characters 10
Although she doesn't appear in the
novel, Mary Ann was Rabbit's first and
best love, his girlfriend during his
Mary Ann basketball glory days. Mary Ann
married someone else while Rabbit
was away in Texas serving in the
army.
Rabbit sees his younger sister Miriam
at the Castanet Club in the company
of a boy who looks as though he
Miriam's attends prep school, which Rabbit
boyfriend couldn't. When the boy challenges
Rabbit's authority and Rabbit treats
him roughly, the boy tells Miriam
Rabbit is in love with her.
Rabbit fantasizes about the square-
Nurse hipped nurse who leads him to see his
newborn daughter at the hospital.
The old Methodist man is a neighbor
of Earl and Mary Angstrom. Mary
Old Methodist
dislikes him because he mows only
man
his half of the grass strip separating
his house from the Angstroms'.
The deceased husband of Rabbit's
employer, Horace Smith was a flower
Horace Smith
enthusiast and a parishioner at Jack
Eccles's church.
Mrs. Horace Smith is an elderly widow
who employs Rabbit to maintain her
Mrs. Horace late husband's flower gardens. A
Smith farmer's daughter, she finds flowers
frivolous, but Rabbit's company is
important to her.
Janice's narcissistic, meddling
mother—a gossip who always makes
Janice feel inferior—Becky Springer
hates Rabbit not for hurting Janice
Becky Springer
but for making Janice the object of
local scandal by leaving her. Though
the baby is named for her, she is not
particularly interested or helpful.
Janice's adored father, Fred Springer
owns used-​car lots and gives Rabbit a
Fred Springer
job as a salesman. He is kind to
Rabbit after Rebecca June's death.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
This tired woman works at the all-
night café in West Virginia where
Woman at
Rabbit stops during his car trip. She is
roadside café
courteous to Rabbit in a way that
communicates he is a stranger there.
Rabbit remembers Mrs. Wenrich, who
worked at the golf course clubhouse
Mrs. Wenrich
where Rabbit caddied during high
school.
Five-​year old Carolyn Zim lived with
her parents next door to Rabbit when
he was a boy. Although her mother
constantly screamed at her, she had a
Carolyn Zim
confident air and was always smiling,
her demeanor leading Mary Angstrom
to speculate Carolyn would murder
her parents one day.
Mr. Zim lived next door to the
Angstroms with his wife and daughter,
Carolyn, during Rabbit's boyhood.
Mr. Zim
Because of his constant, noisy fights,
Mary Angstrom thought he'd murder
his wife.
Mrs. Zim lived next door to the
Angstroms with her husband and
Mrs. Zim daughter, Carolyn, during Rabbit's
boyhood. All day long, she screamed
at five-​year old Carolyn.
k Plot Summary
Epigraph
The novel begins with an excerpt from the writings of 17th-
century French thinker Blaise Pascal. It presents three ideas:
grace, circumstance, and "the hardness of the heart,"
suggesting that the story which follows arises out of the
interplay among them.
Part 1
Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is a 26-year-old former high school
basketball star who feels disappointed and trapped by
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Plot Summary 11
adulthood. He lives in the town of Mt. Judge, a suburb of the
city of Brewer, Pennsylvania, with his pregnant wife Janice and
their two-year-old-son Nelson. The novel opens on a Friday,
the day before the first day of spring, in 1959. On his way home
from his job demonstrating a vegetable-peeling gadget, the
"MagiPeel," Rabbit stops to watch boys play basketball in the
street. He remembers his own youth, and when he joins in their
game, he experiences once again the ease, simplicity, and
mastery—the exhilaration—he used to feel on the court. When
he returns home, however, the messy apartment and dreary
responsibilities of his life feel like a trap in comparison. His wife
in fact disgusts him, because he thinks she is stupid and
passive, and he resents her daily drinking. Leaving the house
on an errand, Rabbit finds himself instead driving down the
highway, intending to go toward the Gulf of Mexico. Unable to
decide on a route or arrive at a destination, Rabbit drives in a
giant circle and returns to Brewer in the early morning hours.
Uncertain about what to do with his life and his family
responsibilities, Rabbit plans to seek advice from the man he
used to venerate: Marty Tothero, his former basketball coach.
Encountering Tothero that morning, Rabbit immediately
realizes the old man is not the wise guide Rabbit once took him
to be. Rather he is addled and incoherent, and Rabbit feels
ashamed on realizing Tothero is disrespected and mocked by
his peers. Tothero says Rabbit can sleep in his cot in the attic
of the Sunshine Athletic Club—now his home—if Rabbit
promises they'll work together to solve the problem of Rabbit's
marriage. However that evening Tothero, drunk and excited,
tells Rabbit they are meeting two prostitutes for dinner at a
Chinese restaurant. One prostitute is Margaret Kosko, whom
Tothero sleeps with regularly, and the other is her friend Ruth
Leonard, whom Tothero has never met. The women's
contempt of Tothero and his blustering, foolish attempt at
making a wise speech confirm Rabbit's newfound disrespect
for Tothero. Rabbit's attention shifts instead to Ruth, and under
the pretense of helping with her utility bills, Rabbit pays her for
sex. Throughout the encounter Rabbit forces Ruth to submit to
his desires, even wiping the makeup off her face and
forbidding her from using contraception. He tells her it is their
wedding night. Although standoffish and cynical, Ruth finds she
enjoyed the sex. The following morning Rabbit wakes, feeling
he has entered a new phase of domesticity with Ruth.
It is Sunday, and seeing the church outside of Ruth's bedroom
window, Rabbit prays for forgiveness. He decides to move in
with Ruth, even though she doesn't want him to. He returns to
get his things from his apartment, where the disarray suggests
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Janice and Nelson have left suddenly. Attempting to sneak out
of his neighborhood unnoticed, he is intercepted by the
Episcopal minister, Jack Eccles, driving up in his car. Janice's
mother has asked Eccles for help persuading Rabbit to return
to Janice. Rabbit senses he is stepping into a trap by opening
up to Eccles but cannot resist the man's invitation to play golf
together the following Tuesday. Rabbit returns to Ruth, elated
with a sense of his own power. He tells her he made her and
the entire universe and then urges her to climb to the top of
Mt. Judge with him. On the mountain top Rabbit's expectation
of experiencing a new level of spiritual understanding turns to
fear when all he senses is the silent air of the mountain.
On Tuesday Rabbit goes to Eccles's house to meet and then
play golf. Eccles's self-assured atheist wife, Lucy, lets Rabbit
in. Rabbit is immediately attracted to Lucy and certain he has
power over her. In fact he slaps her backside before Eccles
appears. Eccles drives them to the golf course on Mt. Judge. A
mediocre player himself, he attempts to coach Rabbit, who
plays abysmally. Becoming frustrated with his inability to
connect his will to the golf ball, Rabbit imagines his clubs are
Janice and Ruth who are preventing him from hitting the ball
skillfully. As they play, Rabbit and Eccles discuss why Rabbit
left Janice. Rabbit claims it is because his marriage was
missing something crucial, which his experience with
basketball has shown him exists and is possible to attain.
Eccles scoffs but is unable to dissuade Rabbit from believing
something meaningful is hidden beneath the surface of things.
Eccles actually lacks faith in God, and Rabbit realizes that
instead of guiding Rabbit toward the thing he seeks, Eccles
hopes Rabbit will confirm its existence for him. Disgusted,
Rabbit stops following Eccles's coaching advice and
immediately hits a glorious hole-in-one. The ball seems
animated by a sublime intelligence as it seeks and reaches its
goal. Rabbit is triumphant with this physical demonstration of
the important thing he has been speaking of.
Part 2
The narrative skips ahead to the week before Memorial Day.
Rabbit has taken a job Eccles got for him, tending the flower
gardens of the elderly Mrs. Smith, who adores Rabbit. On
Memorial Day Rabbit and Ruth go to the public pool. Rabbit
feels on top of the world, but Ruth is troubled by her private
suspicion she is already pregnant by Rabbit. Meanwhile Eccles
visits Janice's mother and learns she is upset because Janice
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Plot Summary 12
has brought shame on the family in allowing Rabbit to leave
her. He visits Rabbit's parents and learns Mrs. Angstrom
considers Rabbit a victim of the manipulative Janice, while his
father is disgusted with his son's behavior and considers him
an enemy. Finally he visits the senior Lutheran minister, Fritz
Kruppenbach. When he asks for his opinion on the situation
between Rabbit and Janice, Kruppenbach blasts Eccles for
failing to take his job seriously. His only job is to strengthen his
own faith, and this is the means by which he is to comfort his
parishioners. Kruppenbach believes Eccles's meddling in his
parishioners' lives is the devil's work. Believing Kruppenbach is
right, and despondent over his own lack of faith, Eccles
distracts himself by going to socialize with his youth group in
town.
The evening of Memorial Day, Rabbit tags along with Ruth as
she goes to meet her friends Margaret Kosko and Ronnie
Harrison, a former teammate of Rabbit's, at a bar. Rabbit finds
himself the odd one out and becomes frustrated as he realizes
he is no more special to Ruth than Ronnie Harrison, who is
commanding the women's attention. Rabbit becomes jealous
when the conversation turns to Ruth and Ronnie's shared past
and tries to cut Harrison down. After seeing his younger sister
at the bar and realizing she no longer adores him or respects
his authority, Rabbit orders Ruth to leave the club with him. He
submits Ruth to a cruel interrogation about her sexual past
with Harrison and demands she prove her loyalty to Rabbit by
giving him oral sex, as she did for Harrison in the past. Ruth is
disgusted by Rabbit but submits to his demands because she
thinks she needs him, since she might be pregnant. After the
humiliating sexual encounter ends, Eccles calls the house with
news that Janice is in labor. Rabbit tells Ruth he is leaving, and
unless she says something to him, he will never come back.
She remains silent, and he runs to the hospital.
Rabbit spends several anguished hours in the hospital waiting
room. Unable to distract himself, he is forced to reflect on his
own actions. Feeling guilty and ashamed of his behavior, he
becomes certain his selfishness will result in the death of
Janice or the infant. When he sees Janice immediately after
her delivery, she is high on painkillers. Her affectionate,
forgiving, girlishly playful mood makes Rabbit question why he
ever left, and he resolves to stay with her. He spends the night
at the Eccles house and returns to the hospital the following
day, where he sees his daughter through the glass of the
nursery. He and Janice decide together to name the infant
Rebecca June.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Rabbit lives at their apartment with Nelson while Janice
recuperates in the hospital. He visits his parents and realizes
his mother dislikes Nelson because the boy is "half-Springer."
Also she wishes he would have left Janice, whom she never
liked. When Janice comes home, Rabbit, in awe of her
postpartum body, refrains from having sex with her. He
accepts Eccles's invitation to attend church but spends the
whole service lusting after Eccles's wife, who sits in front of
him. He assumes Lucy Eccles is propositioning him for sex
when she extends a friendly invitation to come to their house
for coffee after the service. He makes this presumption clear in
his refusal. Outraged and disgusted, Lucy slams the door in
Rabbit's face. Titillated by her rejection, Rabbit returns home,
determined to have sex with Janice for the first time in several
months.
That afternoon Rebecca June's constant crying has Rabbit,
Janice, and Nelson all on edge. Rabbit wants to leave, but his
sexual desire for Janice prevents him. He follows her around
trying to convince her to have a drink, hoping she'll get drunk
and sleep with him. Because he has always criticized her
drinking, and because she is now making an effort to stay
sober, Janice refuses and becomes suspicious. Finally the
baby stops crying, and Janice drinks a cocktail Rabbit
prepares for her. They go to bed, where Rabbit forces himself
on her: she is clearly opposed to it, and the doctor's orders
prohibit it. When Janice voices her sense that Rabbit is using
her, Rabbit becomes angry. Thinking his wife misunderstands
love, he gets up in the middle of their encounter, insults her,
and leaves the house.
Janice, despondent, keeps drinking. Throughout the night, as
she drinks, she continually senses a mysterious presence in
the house with her, which frightens and makes her self-
conscious. By morning, Janice is extremely drunk. Her mother
then calls and, sensing Rabbit has left again, chastises Janice
for bringing disgrace on the family. She tells Janice she will be
at the apartment in 20 minutes, despite her daughter's
protests. In a frenzy, Janice races around the messy house
trying to restore a level of order acceptable to her mother.
Janice curses the baby, who won't stop screaming and has
made a mess in her diaper and on herself. Intending to bathe
the baby, Janice fills the bathtub and carelessly drops the
infant in. To her surprise the baby sinks and has drowned by
the time Janice can get hold of her again. Just as she is
realizing her baby's dead, Janice hears her mother knock at
the door.
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Plot Summary 13
Part 3
After violating Janice and leaving, Rabbit has spent the night at
a hotel and the entire day walking aimlessly through the shops
in Brewer. When he calls Eccles to check whether his sense of
something amiss at home is correct, Eccles tells him about the
baby's death. Feeling guilty, Rabbit rushes to the Springers'
house. Mr. Springer, whom Rabbit has always disliked,
generously tells Rabbit the blame is not his alone and assures
him he still has his job and his place in their family. When
Rabbit sees Janice, he assures her she is not to blame—the
fault is all his. Before the funeral Tothero pays Rabbit a visit at
the Springer house. The old man has come not to offer
condolences or support but to have Rabbit confirm that he,
Tothero, bears no blame for the baby's death. Rabbit is
confused by the old man's claims of giving warnings that went
unheeded, but Rabbit agrees with Tothero just to make him
leave. Rabbit anticipates the funeral with dread, particularly
afraid of his mother's reaction, for he feels her disapproval will
kill him.
When Mrs. Angstrom arrives at the funeral home, she rushes
up to Rabbit as if he were the victim in need of comforting.
Rabbit understands his mother is, in this way, absolving him
from guilt. As Rabbit listens to Eccles's sermon, he moves
through intense grief to a sense of elation, certain his daughter
is now in Heaven. With this settled in his mind, Rabbit feels free
to put the event behind him and turn back to his pursuit of
pleasure. But moments after his daughter's burial in the Mt.
Judge cemetery, Rabbit sees in his wife's face she has not cast
off her grief and guilt as he has. Her feelings anger him, and he
tells her and both their families they must recognize the truth:
the responsibility for Rebecca June's death is solely Janice's.
He expects his mother to agree, but her face shows she is
horrified. Unable to bear his mother's disapproval, Rabbit turns
and runs up into the thick, dark woods at the top of the
mountain.
In the woods Rabbit senses a presence that disturbs him. He
stumbles upon the ruins of an old homestead he encountered
in his childhood and in horror realizes the silent wood is full of
traces of the human consciousness that once inhabited it.
Terrified, Rabbit runs to the Pinnacle Hotel. He tries to call
Eccles to tell him everything is OK, but when Lucy hangs up on
him, Rabbit tells himself he is better off without Eccles. He
goes to Ruth's, and she chastises him for his extreme self-
centeredness, which has resulted in his killing his daughter.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide Plot Summary 14

Rabbit is pleased when he guesses Ruth is pregnant and

encourages her to keep the baby. Ruth tells him either he can
divorce Janice and marry her or she will abort the fetus and cut
Rabbit from her life forever. Rabbit half-listens and then leaves
to get them lunch. Once outside Ruth's apartment, he
contemplates whether to run away or return. He realizes his
self is the only real thing in a world full of illusory people and
circumstances. Standing at the curb, poised on making a
decision, Rabbit's body seems to make the decision for him,
and he finds himself running as the novel ends, just as it
started.

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide Plot Summary 15

Plot Diagram

Climax

11

10
12
9
Falling Action

Rising Action 8
13
7

6 14
5
15
4
Resolution
3

2
1

Introduction

9. Rabbit goes to church but is distracted by lust.

Introduction
10. Rabbit rapes Janice and then leaves.

1. Rabbit plays basketball with some boys in the street.

Climax

Rising Action 11. Drunk and despairing, Janice accidentally drowns the baby.

2. Rabbit suddenly leaves his pregnant wife and young son.

3. Rabbit visits Tothero and realizes the man is a fool.

Falling Action
4. After the first sexual encounter Rabbit moves in with Ruth.
12. During the funeral Rabbit's grief resolves itself.
5. After praying, Rabbit is trapped by Jack Eccles.
13. Rabbit announces Janice is the guilty one and runs.
6. Golf allows Rabbit to show Eccles what he seeks.
14. Rabbit escapes to Ruth's from the horror of the woods.
7. Kruppenbach scolds Eccles for meddling and lack of faith.

8. After his daughter's birth Rabbit returns to his marriage.

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide Plot Summary 16

Resolution

15. Though pleased at Ruth's pregnancy, Rabbit runs away.

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide Plot Summary 17

Timeline of Events

Friday, March 20, 1959

After playing basketball, Rabbit walks out on his wife and

young child and begins driving.

7:30 p.m., Friday

A gas station attendant tells Rabbit he should know

where he's going if he expects to get anywhere.

After midnight

After a wrong turn and near-crash, Rabbit shreds his

map and drives back to his hometown.

Saturday, March 21

Rabbit goes to see his old coach for advice but realizes
the man is an incoherent fool.

That evening

Rabbit and Tothero have dinner with two prostitutes, one

of whom, Ruth Leonard, Rabbit pays for sex.

Sunday, March 22

Rabbit decides to move in with Ruth, who doesn't object.

The same day

Jack Eccles corners Rabbit to question him on Janice's

behalf.

Later on Sunday

When Ruth and Rabbit climb Mt. Judge, he doesn't have

the transcendent experience he hoped for.

2 p.m., Tuesday

Playing golf Rabbit demonstrates grace for Eccles, who

lacks faith.

Memorial Day evening

At a bar Rabbit and Ruth, who thinks she's pregnant,

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide Plot Summary 18

meet Ronnie Harrison, who insults Rabbit.

Later that evening

After Rabbit makes Ruth perform oral sex, he runs to the

hospital where Janice is in labor.

Early the next morning

After their daughter is born, Rabbit reconciles with

Janice and decides to return to her.

Sunday

After attending church and lusting after Lucy Eccles,

Rabbit goes home wanting sex with Janice.

Later on Sunday

With the baby crying all afternoon and Janice upset,

Rabbit makes her drink alcohol.

Sunday evening

Against doctor's orders and Janice's pleas, Rabbit forces

himself on Janice and then leaves her.

Monday morning

After drinking all night, Janice, in despair, begs her

mother not to come to the apartment.

A few minutes later

Frantically trying to tidy the apartment and bathe the

baby, Janice accidentally drowns the infant.

Wednesday afternoon

At the end of the funeral Rabbit tells Janice she killed the
baby and then runs into the woods.

Later on Wednesday

Rabbit learns of Ruth's pregnancy and finds himself

running away again.

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide
c Section Summaries
Rabbit, Run has three numbered parts and no chapters. This
study guide divides each part into sections based on continuity
of plot elements for the purpose of summary and analysis.
Epigraph
Summary
The brief epigraph which begins Rabbit, Run is an excerpt from
the Pensées (1670) of French mathematician, physicist,
inventor, writer, and Catholic thinker Blaise Pascal. The
epigraph reads, "The motions of grace, the hardness of the
heart; external circumstances."
Analysis
Blaise Pascal was a 17th-century French intellectual whose
work has been a significant influence on modern thought and
has laid the groundwork for modern understandings of
probability, atmospheric pressure, and even the computer. In
his later years, Pascal experienced a mystical and emotional
conversion to Christianity, and Updike's epigraph is an excerpt
from a text defending the faith that was incomplete when
Pascal died.
By using Pascal's words as an epigraph, Updike situates
Rabbit, Run within a lineage of religious and philosophical
understanding. The epigraph's words are an elegant container
for the text's meaning, suggesting that the story which follows
will best be understood by readers who keep these three
elements in mind. Indeed throughout the novel, protagonist
Rabbit Angstrom finds himself in the middle of a shifting
network of internal, external, and supernatural experiences of
grace, or unearned blessings. Ultimately unable to balance
these three elements, Rabbit fails to grow in understanding or
to make better choices as a result of his experiences.
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Section Summaries 19
Part 1, Section 1
Summary
Set in Brewer, Pennsylvania (a fictional version of Reading),
and its fictional suburb Mt. Judge, Rabbit, Run begins in the
spring of 1959. Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a 26 year-old man
living a dreary life in a depressing suburban apartment, is a
former high school basketball star. After setting county scoring
records, now already broken, he earns a small living
demonstrating a kitchen gadget called the MagiPeel. One
Friday evening, the day before the spring equinox, Rabbit
watches six boys playing basketball in the street. They
reluctantly let him join in, and Rabbit is "elated" to realize he
still has his skill as well as the ability, he hopes, to access some
freedom, ease, and mastery on the court. Rabbit runs home to
find his heavily pregnant wife Janice drinking and watching The
Mickey Mouse Club on television. Rabbit quarrels with her,
irritated by her drinking, his conception of her as "dumb," and
his neglected home, whose "continual crisscrossing mess
clings to his back like a tightening net." Feeling stifled and
trapped by his surroundings, Rabbit thinks back to his and
Janice's courtship and marriage—she was already
pregnant—and then leaves. Instead of picking up their son and
car and returning home as he is expected to do, he finds
himself driving down the highway, suddenly deciding to drive to
the Gulf of Mexico.
When Rabbit asks a gas station attendant for a map, both men
realize Rabbit doesn't know where he's going. The attendant
tells him "the only way to get somewhere ... is to figure out
where you're going before you go there." Annoyed, Rabbit
disagrees and drives straight. Down the road he buys a map.
However, Rabbit's route keeps shifting to match his unreliable
instincts and unstable emotions. He drives through parts of
Pennsylvania's Amish country, Maryland, and West Virginia
listening to popular music and commercials on the radio.
Stopping in a West Virginia café, Rabbit has a strong sensation
of separation and difference. At the same time, "the more he
drives, the more the region resembles the country around Mt.
Judge." Rabbit tears up the map, throws it out of the window,
and, fearful and confused about what he's doing, drives back
toward Brewer. He sleeps in his car outside the local Sunshine
Athletic Club, where he hopes to see his old coach, Marty
Tothero.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Analysis
Rabbit's past and present, his values and desires, and his
pattern of crisis, flight, and return are all established in this
section. These are the key plot elements in the novel, which
focuses on Rabbit's existential crises and how his self-
centered pursuit of meaning and satisfaction affects the
people in his life. Updike builds Rabbit's character, creates
tension, advances plot, and enhances thematic meaning by
structuring these elements through repetition and
juxtaposition—placing dissimilar elements together so a
contrast and a fragmented unity both arise.
Rabbit's dissatisfaction with his adult life is rooted in its
unfavorable contrast with his childhood and adolescence. His
identity is rooted in his past as an adored big brother of a
younger sister, a beloved son with no serious responsibilities,
and a champion basketball player. Now he is an adult who feels
victimized and trapped by family—the result of marrying his
pregnant girlfriend who has disappointed him—and boring,
unfulfilling work. Juxtaposed with the elation he felt moments
earlier playing basketball, his messy home and routine chores
are intolerable to him. Because Rabbit values only his own
experience and sees other people in terms of his own needs,
he drives away without a stab of his conscience. Moreover,
with the emotional maturity of an adolescent, Rabbit lacks the
self-awareness to realize he is leaving, even at the moment he
does it. Basketball taught Rabbit he was superior to others,
even infallible, in a kind of game he could dominate. Now he
sees Janice as the reason for his abandoning her. Similarly he
blames his failed trip to the Gulf of Mexico on the man at the
gas station for not having the map Rabbit wanted.
Also significant are the names introduced at the beginning of
the novel. First, the nickname Rabbit represents speed and the
joy of running. As an adult Rabbit has kept his adolescent
nickname—implying he is still an adolescent at 26—but it now
reflects the rabbit-like quality of fear: rabbits run from
predators for they have few defenses. It also suggests Rabbit's
tendency to be possessed by lust and to indulge in sexual
promiscuity. As an adult Rabbit seems incapable of dealing
with unpleasantness or responsibility except by running from it.
Rabbit's surname, Angstrom, contains the word angst, meaning
"anxiety, fear, foreboding, dread" in German. All of these are
part of Rabbit's character and bring him back from his
attempts at escape. Former coach Tothero's name is
significant as well. He is a "hero" to "tots," meaning he seemed
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Section Summaries 20
heroic to the basketball players he coached, but the respect
does not come from adults, given his questionable behavior
and uselessness when truly needed as a confidante and
mentor.
Part 1, Section 2
Summary
That morning, a Saturday, Rabbit encounters an older Tothero,
who addresses him as "the great Harry Angstrom." When
Rabbit tells him he's left his wife and home, Tothero suggests
Rabbit could have prevented Janice's alcoholism by drinking
with her and is disappointed in what he calls Rabbit's
immaturity. He agrees to let Rabbit sleep for the day in his cot
in the attic of the Sunshine Athletic Club. In exchange he
makes Rabbit promise they'll find a way to help Janice. Tothero
can't believe his "greatest boy would grow into such a
monster." Rabbit undresses in front of Tothero and gets into
the cot, remembering how Tothero used to stand "in locker
rooms watching his boys change clothes."
Around 6 p.m. Tothero wakes Rabbit up. Tipsy and overexcited
he tells Rabbit, "I've got a girl for you!" They are going to meet
a prostitute Tothero sees regularly, and she is bringing a friend.
Tothero gives Rabbit a shirt to wear and tells him how honored
he is Rabbit returned to him after years, needing his help.
Rabbit "feels freedom like oxygen everywhere around him." He
feels so calm, he thinks "he is the Dalai Lama." This feeling
shifts to shame about himself and Tothero, as he realizes the
men at the Sunshine Athletic Club consider Tothero "a fool."
Tothero's empty platitudes and over-long silences reduce
Rabbit's esteem for his once-beloved coach.
Rabbit and Tothero meet Margaret Kosko and her friend Ruth
Leonard at a Chinese restaurant. Rabbit immediately dislikes
Margaret, thinking she "is just another Janice." He and Ruth
strike up a rapport after discovering they graduated from high
school the same year, 1951. They all drink, even Rabbit, whose
attention is focused on Ruth. Both women are dismissive and
contemptuous of Tothero, who drunkenly gives a sentimental
speech about what it means to be a coach. The food arrives,
and Rabbit and Tothero reminisce about Rabbit's glory days on
the basketball team. Rabbit realizes Tothero's memory of him
is inaccurate and keeps correcting him.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
When Margaret makes a sarcastic comment about Rabbit,
Tothero calls Margaret a tramp. She slaps him, leaving his face
in a lopsided smirk, a "sickly mixture of bravado and shame
and, worst, pride or less than pride, conceit," which Rabbit
"can't bear to look at." As Tothero and Margaret leave
together, Rabbit refuses Tothero's offer of a place to stay.
Analysis
This section begins when Rabbit has completed his first futile
attempt to escape from his life. He returns to where he started,
although not to his home and marriage. Instead he finds the
man who understands and had a hand in his greatness: his high
school basketball coach. Unable to get what he seeks from
Tothero, whom Rabbit now sees as less of a hero, Rabbit shifts
his attention to Ruth Leonard. For the rest of the novel Rabbit
will follow this pattern. Confused flight is always followed by
some kind of return. Having returned, Rabbit is propelled
toward his next flight when he is unable to find the solace and
meaning he seeks in the wisdom of authority and in sexual
conquest.
Just as the plot is patterned through Rabbit's flight, return, and
seeking, Rabbit's internal experience is also patterned. His
mood and outlook rapidly shift between the extremes of
shame, depression, and despair to elation and overconfidence.
These shifts are sudden and occasioned by small external
cues, which Rabbit interprets as significant. The prospect of
meeting a girl is one such cue. What seems confusing and
uncertain in a moment becomes clear, as Rabbit's "deeper
instincts flood forward, telling him he is right." The problem is
Rabbit's instincts are as malleable as his moods, and with
Tothero clearly unable to continue as a mentor, Rabbit has only
instinct and mood to guide him. In this way Rabbit's inner
instability destabilizes not only his life but also the lives of all
those close to him.
Rabbit's disillusionment with Tothero in this chapter signifies
the gap between youthful perceptions and adult reality,
between the idealized past and the disappointing present. This
perception is accentuated by Tothero's lopsided,
foreshortened physical appearance. The gap is conveyed as
well by the way the men in the Sunshine Athletic Club, Ruth,
and Margaret react to Tothero. Rabbit watches Tothero reveal
himself a buffoon, his unawareness of the others' contempt
accentuated by his use of alcohol. Tothero's
speech—composed of sentimentalities, platitudes, long pauses,
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Section Summaries 21
and casual racism and misogyny—further emphasizes Rabbit's
lack of a competent authority figure to direct him.
Tothero does, however, lead Rabbit to Ruth Leonard, a woman
who will play a major role in the novel. In contrast to Tothero,
who fawns and blabbers drunkenly, Ruth is frank, collected,
and unimpressed. She is also a prostitute, which means Rabbit
has a way to access her sexuality, whether or not she likes
him. Wanting to possess Ruth, Rabbit is glad his birthday is
several months before hers, because "you can't feel master,
quite, of a woman who's older." Ruth's biblical name, too is
significant. Although its opposite, ruthless, is more frequently
used, ruth means both "compassion" and "remorse."
Rabbit's need to dominate and possess women substitutes for
the sense of mastery he used to feel playing basketball.
Mastery is signified, in part, by the envious attention and
respect of others, which Rabbit had on the court but does not
get from his wife or from his job. But as Rabbit stands with
Ruth, waiting to be seated, he "is elated to think that a stranger
passing outside the window ... would see him with a woman."
Part 1, Section 3
Summary
Alone in the restaurant with Ruth, Rabbit gives her some
money. He says it is for her rent and expenses, but they both
understand he is paying to have sex with her.
They leave the restaurant and walk to her apartment. Once
inside Rabbit surprises and angers Ruth by grabbing her
tightly. She tells him to get out, but he pleads with her. He is a
lover, he insists: "I've been loving you so much all night...I had to
get it out of my system." Ruth remains bristly and unconvinced.
She goes to the bathroom to put in a diaphragm to protect
against pregnancy. When Rabbit objects, she remarks he's
acting as though they're married, bossing her around so much.
Emboldened by alcohol, Rabbit wants to pretend they are
indeed married and calls it their "wedding night." Ruth wants to
get it over with, but he insists she present herself completely
naked and without makeup. He becomes paternal with her,
washing her face with a washcloth as she struggles. Without
makeup, Ruth seems ugly to Rabbit.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
As he undresses her, his perception shifts, and she becomes
the idealized image of beauty. During the foreplay, he wants to
merge completely with her and is frustrated by his inability to
do so. However Rabbit feels sadness during sex and remarks
afterward, "You were a beautiful piece." The sex is
transcendent for Ruth, who hasn't had such an experience,
"like falling through," for a while.
That night Rabbit dreams he is in the kitchen of his parents'
house with his mother, father, and a girl. As the girl opens an
icebox, Rabbit realizes the chunk of ice inside appears to be
made of cells and is in fact alive. Rabbit's mother tells him to
close the door, but when he blames the girl for opening it, Mrs.
Angstrom agrees her "good boy wouldn't hurt anyone." She
begins to chastise the girl, and Rabbit feels tortured by the
"grief" he feels for the girl. The girl seems for a moment like his
sister, but when his mother leaves, the girl becomes his wife,
Janice. As Rabbit tries to soothe Janice's tears, her face
begins to melt and drip into his hands.
Rabbit wakes himself screaming. It is Sunday morning, and he
and Ruth have sex again. He watches her dress, and "her
accepting his watching her flatters him, shelters him." He and
Ruth have now "become domestic."
Analysis
Although it is an encounter between a professional sex worker
and a paying customer, Rabbit prefers to interpret the evening
as his and Ruth's wedding night. This delusion, spurred on by
the alcohol he drank at dinner, is resistant to Ruth's verbal and
physical insistence otherwise. For Rabbit, truth lives in his
head, and his actions reflect his selfish discounting of other
perspectives. That Rabbit feels this is a "wedding night" has
nothing to do with feelings he has for Ruth. It is more about the
ways he understands his experience with her in the context of
his real marriage to Janice. "He makes love to her as he would
to his wife," massaging her to accommodate Janice's
resistance to sex, and shutting his eyes as he would with
Janice: "Janice was shy of his eyes so Ruth heats in his
darkness."
As with Janice, Rabbit gives orders to Ruth and dominates her
physically whenever he can. He doesn't take seriously her lack
of consent or her discomfort. He attacks her with a hug that
feels as though he's trying to kill her, and he ignores her
explicit orders to leave her apartment. In fact his behavior
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Section Summaries 22
foreshadows his later encounter when he forces himself on
Janice. Rabbit acts as if he owns Ruth, who notices this
behavior and sardonically remarks about marriage being a man
bossing a woman around. Not picking up on her meaning,
Rabbit is delighted she has just enunciated his own view of
marriage. He takes her comment as a license to treat her as a
passive object meant only for his own satisfaction.
Rabbit has fled domesticity with Janice because it felt like a
trap, but his flight has come full circle. By the end of this
chapter, Rabbit has shifted from conquest of Ruth, through a
symbolic "marriage," to a new domesticity with her. Blinded by
lust and alcohol, Rabbit lacks the ability to realize he is merely
repeating the past with a new woman. The only sign of
conscience at abandoning his responsibilities to Janice comes
in highly symbolic form at the end of the dream when Janice's
weeping face melts into his hands. All of his self has been
focused on possessing Ruth's body, but even at the moment
he attains what he has sought, the sense of disappointment
begins creeping in. He reflects there is "something sad in the
capture" as he enters Ruth's body, and his orgasm "sobs,"
being an expression of his despair. The sorrow and fear that
accompany Rabbit's shift back from the wild animal who gives
free rein to his impulses of escape and procreation to a
domesticated animal locked in his hutch set him up to repeat
the pattern once more, fully here with Ruth as his new
dominated woman.
Part 1, Section 4
Summary
The sights and sounds of the church outside the window
prompt Rabbit and Ruth to discuss faith. Ruth says decisively
she believes in nothing, but Rabbit "wonders if he's lying" when
he says he thinks he believes in something. Rabbit argues, "if
God doesn't exist, why does anything?" Ruth responds, "Why?
There's No why to it. Things just are." Sensing Ruth's irritation
at the conversation, Rabbit demands she articulate why she
likes him. She likes him because he "hasn't given up," and even
though he's a fool, he's "still fighting."
Rabbit decides he's going to move in with Ruth, and despite
Ruth's hesitation, he returns to his house to drop off the car
and gather his belongings. The disarray in the empty house
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
suggests Janice has left suddenly. Leaving the key inside,
Rabbit closes the locked door and tries to sneak back through
the neighborhood without being noticed, but the Episcopal
minister, Jack Eccles, intercepts him, asking where he's going.
"Huh? Nowhere," Rabbit responds.
Eccles tells Rabbit Janice's parents called him the night Rabbit
ran off, but Janice "seems much saner today." When Eccles
begins to probe Rabbit's motives and intentions, Rabbit
explains he was trapped in his marriage "glued in with a lot of
busted toys and empty glasses and television going and meals
late," until he realized he could simply walk away. Having been
a "first-rate" basketball player, he could not accept a "second-
rate" marriage. Eccles asks whether Rabbit thinks "God wants
[him] to make [his] wife suffer." Rabbit responds by quoting
Jimmie the Mouseketeer: "Do you think God wants a waterfall
to be a tree?" Although Rabbit doesn't like Eccles, he agrees to
play golf with him on Tuesday.
Back at Ruth's house, Rabbit tells her "I made you ... I made you
and the sun and the stars." He bullies Ruth, who is reading, into
walking up Mt. Judge. She has only high heels to wear and
doesn't really want to go. Halfway up the mountain she trips,
and Rabbit orders her to take off her shoes. He does the same
"in a gesture of gratitude ... to share whatever pain there is,"
but while Ruth walks stoically, the rocks hurt Rabbit's tender
feet. Atop the mountain Rabbit wonders what he expected to
find there. He tries to see beyond the illusion before him to a
truer reality but receives only silence and falls into existential
doubt and fear. After he makes Ruth hug him, he feels better
and then asks her, "Were you really a whore?" Ruth frees
herself from his grasp and asks, "Are you a really a rat?"
Analysis
This section shows the ways Rabbit defines himself in
opposition to women. Because Ruth believes in nothing, Rabbit
is compelled to say he believes in something, even though he
isn't sure. Ruth's sense of absence, or negativity, began with
her claim at the Chinese restaurant that she does nothing and
continues when she describes her first sexual encounter with
him as "falling through" to "nowhere." Even though he defines
himself in opposition to it, Rabbit is attracted to his idea of the
"nothing" Ruth signifies because it implies freedom and
simplicity.
However, the church is a visible presence from the bed where
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Section Summaries 23
Ruth encounters "nothing," and Rabbit's attention to the
churchgoers and fixation on the church window suggest
Rabbit, in the midst of it all, might be about to turn toward
religion and faith in his quest for meaning and answers.
Rabbit's religious mode begins with a sincere and silent prayer
in which he asks Christ for help and forgiveness and to bless
the people in his life.
However, as a result of the encounter with Eccles, Rabbit's
spirituality shifts toward the egoic and delusional. Rabbit
wonders why Eccles doesn't chastise him. Eccles is supposed
to be a moral authority, and Rabbit's earlier prayer for
forgiveness suggests he is aware he has done something
immoral. Instead Eccles is friendly, even "giggly," and smokes
cigarettes, something Rabbit has had the strength to give up.
Eccles's interest in Rabbit's motivations and thoughts prompts
Rabbit to speak freely and honestly. Yet Eccles's
nonjudgmental listening invites Rabbit's contempt, and he
categorizes Eccles as lacking moral authority. Instead of
clarifying the distinction between right and wrong, Eccles
seems more concerned with the details of his parishioners' life
struggles. Rabbit parts from Eccles feeling he himself has the
moral authority and spiritual connection Eccles lacks.
Rabbit's statement to Ruth that he made the universe is
serious, for as soon as he says it, he seems to think it is true.
Speaking with Eccles has only boosted Rabbit's narcissism.
Rabbit's climb to the top of Mt. Judge is an attempt to
demonstrate his divine power to himself as well as to Ruth,
whom he badgers to follow him as if he were a prophet. But
Rabbit doesn't see through illusions, and his cocky certainty
turns to doubt and fear as he begins to wonder what he is
doing and why. Instead of attempting to answer these
questions seriously, Rabbit turns back to one of his favorite
crutches: his ability to force women to serve his needs. Not
only is he not a prophet or a god, but Ruth accuses him of
being a rat. He does not deny this because he needs her at this
moment. And perhaps his guilt allows him to believe he is
indeed a rat—another animal image as part of his unknown
humanity.
Part 1, Section 5
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Summary
On Tuesday afternoon Rabbit goes to Jack Eccles's house to
meet him for a game of golf as promised. Lucy, Jack's wife,
answers the door. Although he doesn't understand her
reference to Freud, Rabbit immediately feels in control of her
and slaps her on the behind.
When Eccles appears, he and Lucy begin to quarrel about his
playing golf. Their quarrel sharpens when Eccles brings up her
atheism and implies she hasn't left her heart "open to Grace,"
as he requested before their marriage. Lucy is upset their
three-year-old daughter, Joyce, is asking her about death, and
Eccles tells her, "If you had ... my faith in the supernatural,
these perfectly natural questions wouldn't upset you." While
Rabbit waits for Eccles, he muses about Lucy, thinking she's a
"bitch" who would "want her own," but "in spite of herself he
loves her."
As Rabbit and Eccles drive to the golf course, Eccles mentions
he's seen Janice at her mother's house, hanging out with
Peggy Fosnacht. This reminds Rabbit of Fosnacht Day, a local
holiday, and he reminisces to Jack about how his maternal
grandfather used to indulge him on that day. In turn Jack tells
Rabbit about his paternal grandfather, the Bishop of
Providence, who identified himself as a "Darwinian Deist." In
contrast, Eccles's father was orthodox in his ways, nearly
Catholic. Eccles says he thinks hell is real: it is "separation from
God" described by Christ. Hell would be an "outer darkness,"
he tells Rabbit, adding "What we live in you might call ... inner
darkness."
Rabbit expresses his thought that behind the visible and
material world, "there's something that wants me to find it."
Eccles then begins to mock Rabbit's self-proclaimed spiritual
drive, implying Rabbit is a ladies' man rather than a mystic.
Rabbit feels offended, tension builds, and Jack admits he is
depressed. Rabbit views with distaste what he considers
Eccles's cry for love and pity.
As they begin their golf game, Eccles throws Rabbit's game off
by giving him inept coaching. Eccles grows giddy as his
mediocre game outpaces Rabbit's poor one, and Rabbit
becomes despairing and angry. In a kind of waking nightmare,
the nonhuman world before Rabbit becomes animated. He
imagines the golf clubs are Ruth and Janice, and the bush in
which his ball gets trapped is his mother.
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Section Summaries 24
When Eccles asks again why Rabbit left Janice, Rabbit
explains "there was this thing that wasn't there." Rabbit wants
Eccles to tell him what the "thing" is, but Eccles tries to argue it
doesn't exist, adding Christianity is not a quest for the
"rainbow" of fun and exciting experience, but rather it is about
humbling oneself in service. Eccles blurts out Rabbit is an
immoral coward who "worship[s] nothing but his own worst
instincts." Rabbit takes the next shot in anger, preparing to flee
this "mess." Ignoring Eccles, he swings, and the ball seems to
take on an intelligence of its own as it makes its way to the
hole. Rabbit is triumphant, for the ball has just demonstrated
the missing thing Rabbit couldn't describe and Eccles doubted:
"That's it!" he tells Eccles.
Analysis
In this section Updike provides a fuller picture of Jack Eccles
through his interactions with his wife and with Rabbit. Both
interactions are marked by tension, the root of which is the gap
between what Eccles pretends to be—an authority and a
leader in matters spiritual and otherwise—and what he actually
is—a clergyman who question his own Christian faith.
Jack and Lucy married despite his pursuit of a ministerial
position and her atheism. Lucy is more inclined toward Freud
than to God, although her comment to Rabbit reveals she
views truth not as an absolute but as a relative entity grounded
in an individual's subjective experience. "I think Freud is like
God; you make it true," she tells Rabbit. Rabbit does not know
who or what Freud is, but readers familiar with basic
psychoanalytic concepts like repression, self-deception (lying
to oneself about one's true motives or actions), defense
mechanisms (psychological patterns that arise spontaneously
to protect the conscious mind from experiencing anxiety and
guilt), and the Oedipus complex (a son's unconscious sexual
fixation on his mother and accompanying hostility toward his
father) will not have a hard time attaching these ideas onto
Rabbit's character.
However immature and neurotic Rabbit may be, this section
demonstrates Eccles isn't far behind. Whereas Rabbit feels no
obligation to anyone and flouts his responsibilities, Eccles has
chosen a helping profession that positions him as a spiritual
leader and moral authority for his community. Instead of the
dignified, serious, consistent behavior both Lucy and Rabbit
expect of such a man, Eccles alternates between goofiness,
self-deprecation, and hostility disguised as moral self-
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
righteousness. Eccles's behavior reflects the insecurity and
despair at the core of his own personality. In front of Rabbit he
ridicules Lucy's atheism and implies she has wronged him by
not having received grace by now. His words are meant to
diminish her, but they stem from Eccles's uncomfortable
awareness of his own failings.
Eccles's character shows situational irony because he is a
leader crying out for someone to lead him. Before taking his
final stroke on the golf course, Rabbit realizes Eccles's
mocking questions about "the thing that wasn't there" in
Rabbit's life mean Eccles doubts not only Christian doctrine
but God's very existence. Rabbit understands Eccles wants
him to confirm in some way, if he possibly can, "that it is there,
that he's not lying to all those people every Sunday," just as he
wants his wife to prove to him grace is real by receiving it
herself. Ironically enough, this is exactly what Rabbit does,
moments later. He hits the ball straight to the hole, with an
improbable beauty, power, and intelligence of motion that
Rabbit recognizes immediately as the "thing" his marriage
lacks. It is this he now searches for, having known it as a youth
on the basketball court. Somehow, in the presence of this
unbelieving man of God, he believes he might be iust
approaching it.
Part 2, Section 6
Summary
It is the week before Memorial Day. Rabbit is now employed as
a gardener for the elderly widow, Mrs. Horace Smith. A
practical-minded farmer's daughter, Mrs. Smith finds her late
husband's flower gardens frivolous, but she is fond of Rabbit.
They walk arm-in-arm through the flower fields on her property
where the rhododendrons are finally blooming. One of them,
"Harry's Bianchi," is the only truly pink rhododendron and the
only one of its kind in the whole country.
Saturday is Memorial Day, and at the public pool Ruth wonders
why life seems to have rewarded Rabbit for abandoning his
duties. Parroting Jack Eccles, Rabbit says it's because he's "a
mystic" who "gives people faith." "You're so smug ... Don't you
ever think you're going to have to pay the price?" she asks him.
Rabbit responds he has learned "if you have the guts to be
yourself, other people'll pay your price." Ruth suspects she is
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Section Summaries 25
already pregnant by Rabbit but doesn't want to tell him
because she fears he'd leave.
Eccles spends the day making a round of calls. First he visits
Janice's mother. He defends Rabbit, telling her he's a good
man and Janice is partially responsible for Rabbit's
unacceptable behavior. Mrs. Springer is upset because
Janice's situation has become a favorite topic of ridicule for
the local gossips. Nelson is there playing, and when he
becomes upset, Eccles rushes to rescue him. Mrs. Springer
says her grandson is "spoiled," like Rabbit: "He's been made
too much of and thinks the world owes him what he wants."
Eccles also visits Rabbit's parents. Mrs. Angstrom dislikes
Janice and claims she trapped Rabbit into marriage by
"get[ting] herself pregnant." Eccles defends Janice and says
Rabbit should be ashamed. Mr. Angstrom considers Janice a
"martyr" and Rabbit his "enemy." He says there's no hope for
Rabbit, because he's become "the worst kind of Brewer bum"
and is too old to change. Both Mr. and Mrs. Angstrom agree
Rabbit's stint in the army is responsible for his personality
change for the worse.
Finally Eccles visits the Angstroms' minister, Fritz
Kruppenbach, head of the Lutheran church for 27 years.
Kruppenbach calls Rabbit a Schussel, a German slang term for
a stupid, clumsy person, and then criticizes Eccles for
meddling in other people's lives. It is "Devil's work," and it is not
his job. Only God can "end misery," and Eccles's role is to
comfort people by making himself "an exemplar of faith." When
Eccles, angry, refuses Kruppenbach's request to join him in
prayer, Kruppenbach says Eccles is failing to take his job
seriously: "Don't you believe in damnation? Didn't you know
when you put that collar on, what you risked?" Deeply
depressed and believing Kruppenbach right, Eccles goes to
socialize with his parishioners at a drugstore in town.
Analysis
Whereas in Part 1 the narrator tells the story from Rabbit's
perspective, in Part 2 the narration jumps around between
Rabbit and the other major characters. In this section the
narrator reveals the perspectives of both Ruth and Eccles. The
multiple perspectives paint a more nuanced, complex picture
of both the plot and characters than does Rabbit's perspective
alone. Ruth's intimation she is pregnant further complicates the
situation, but the secret remains with her, unknown to anyone
Rabbit, Run Study Guide Section Summaries 26

but her and the reader. and valued—instead of examining his own.

As a result of the three house calls Eccles makes, readers get

a bigger picture of Rabbit and Janice, as well as of Eccles. Mrs.
Springer is deeply upset by her daughter's situation but not
Part 2, Section 7
because she feels empathy for Janice. Rather she is
embarrassed because the situation has become a scandal—a
favorite subject for the local gossips. Her priorities are keeping
Summary
up appearances at any cost. She sees Janice not for the
That night, out of boredom, Rabbit accompanies Ruth to a bar,
person she is but as an extension of herself, capable of
the Castanet Club. Rabbit doesn't understand why their life
bringing shame on the family. It is not surprising, therefore,
together has lost its initial ease or why Ruth keeps trying to
Janice is fearful and passive, having grown up with a mother
make him feel guilty. At the bar they meet Margaret Kosko and
who judged rather than nurtured her.
Ronnie Harrison, Ruth's old friend and Rabbit's former
Mrs. Angstrom's attitude toward Rabbit is as unbalanced as teammate.
Mrs. Springer's toward Janice. Mrs. Angstrom sees her son as
Rabbit senses the evening is a repeat of the night he met Ruth
the innocent victim of the scheming, manipulative Janice.
at the Chinese restaurant. This time, however, Rabbit rather
Rabbit remains his mother's precious little boy who can do no
than Tothero is the odd one out. Rabbit's fixation on Harrison's
wrong. However, Mr. Angstrom feels the opposite: they might
flaws sharpens into hatred as Harrison, with his glib salesman-
as well forget about the son they used to have because Rabbit
like ways, amuses the women and commands their attention.
has turned into "human garbage." The Angstroms' sharp
Harrison says Marty Tothero told him he, not Rabbit, was his
disagreement indicates not only their distance from one
most valuable player. Worse, Ronnie and Ruth begin
another but also their differing attitudes toward their son
reminiscing fondly about their shared past. Rabbit realizes he is
during his childhood: an overly critical, harsh father and an
no more special to Ruth than Ronnie and becomes angry.
overindulgent, coddling mother. The mixed parental messages
likely contributed to Rabbit's confusion as an adult whose
When Rabbit's sister, Miriam, walks in with a young man, Rabbit
changing emotions substitute for a moral compass.
goes to their table and tells her she has no business being in
such a place. When Miriam's date challenges Rabbit's
Eccles's character is revealed by his response to the Springers
authority, Rabbit grabs him and roughs him up. Walking back to
and the Angstroms, as well as by Kruppenbach's criticisms. His
his table, Rabbit overhears him tell Miriam her brother is "in
own moral compass seems off kilter as well, as his opinion on
love with you." Rabbit then makes Ruth leave with him, even
the Rabbit/Janice situation shifts in response to the opinions
though she doesn't want to go.
of those around him. With access to Eccles's thoughts for the
first time, readers learn his allegiance is to the weak, and his
Rabbit submits Ruth to a cruel interrogation about the details
faith rests in the power of pity. These attitudes as revealed by
of her sexual past, forcing her to admit having slept with
Updike come not from Eccles's strength but from his own
Harrison. Tired of Rabbit's overblown ego, Ruth wants to break
weakness. The criticisms of the elder Kruppenbach—who
up, but knowledge of her pregnancy keeps her from acting
chastises him for thinking his "job is to be an unpaid doctor, to
decisively. Rabbit insists Ruth has betrayed him and implies his
run around and plug up the holes and make everything smooth"
continued presence depends on her giving him oral sex
or a "cop without handcuffs"—at first anger Eccles but then
because this is what she did for Ronnie in the past. "Tonight
throw him into despair. He believes he knows Kruppenbach is
you turned against me," he says. "I need to see you on your
right—that a clergyman's job in the community is to
knees," and Ruth complies.
demonstrate faith rather than play a passive listener role, but
instead of re-evaluating his approach or his vocation, Eccles Meanwhile Janice has gone into labor, and Lucy Eccles spends
chooses to distract himself by engaging in the very behavior hours trying to track down her husband. Starting to feel as
Kruppenbach has just criticized. He goes to the drugstore though Jack has deserted her too, she resents the
because he knows he will encounter his parishioners and can parishioners who have destroyed his "gaiety." Jack Eccles
focus on their lives—and the way they make him feel needed rushes in from the drugstore around 11 that night and calls

Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.

Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Rabbit. Reluctantly agreeing to go to the hospital, Rabbit tells
Ruth he'll be back soon. When she doesn't respond, he tells her
he will leave for good if she doesn't say something. She says
nothing, and he runs to the hospital. As he sits in the waiting
room, he is tormented by the idea that either Janice or the
infant will die because of his sin, "a conglomerate of flight,
cruelty, obscenity, and conceit."
Analysis
In the previous chapter Rabbit is convinced he possesses the
special powers of a "mystic." The events of this chapter, on the
other hand, cause his emotional pendulum to swing in the other
direction. In the space of a few hours Rabbit is on the verge of
breaking down in shame, guilt, and fear. Rabbit's plunge toward
despair begins with the mean-spirited Ronnie Harrison, who
crushes Rabbit's inflated sense of superiority in the two areas
most important to him: women and basketball. Not only does
Harrison show Rabbit he is not special to Ruth, he makes a
claim that calls into question Rabbit's supremacy as a teenage
basketball star.
Rabbit's ego has already taken this blow when his sister Miriam
walks into the bar. Although this meeting is the first time the
plot has drawn brother and sister into the same space, Rabbit's
flashbacks have shown his childhood relationship with his
sister is still important to him. As the younger sister, Miriam
adored and needed Rabbit. This childhood experience of
exercising control over a female who revered him
unquestioningly has shaped his expectations of adult male-
female relationships. Indeed Miriam's companion's comment
about Rabbit's being in love with her is not far off, as Rabbit
keeps trying—and failing—to recreate with Ruth and Janice
what he had as a child with Miriam. Now Miriam is grown up,
detached, and unimpressed with Rabbit. Until now Rabbit has
thought of himself as Miriam's powerful, adored big brother,
but this interaction destroys such feelings.
Rabbit's reaction is to be verbally aggressive with Ronnie
Harrison, physically aggressive with Miriam's date, and sexually
aggressive, or coercive, with Ruth. Just when Rabbit has begun
to patch up his ego by forcing Ruth into oral sex, he must begin
facing the consequences of his actions with Janice. The
hospital waiting room is like a trap for Rabbit in which he can
neither run nor manipulate other people. It is also like a mirror,
for Rabbit has nothing to do but look at himself.
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Section Summaries 27
What he sees torments and horrifies him. His guilt takes the
shape of an ominous fear his actions will result in his wife's or
infant's death. Rabbit still believes what he told Ruth in an
earlier chapter: other people would pay the price for his
actions. Smug about it then, he now experiences the horror of
what those words actually mean.
Part 2, Section 8
Summary
Midnight passes, and Rabbit is still waiting, tormented by the
idea his child will be a "monster of his own making" and Janice
could die. He feels better as he remembers Mary Ann, his high
school girlfriend who married another while he was in the army.
When Janice's parents come into the room, Mrs. Springer
accuses Rabbit of waiting for Janice to die. Though hate-filled,
the accurate accusation makes Rabbit feel less alone.
After their daughter is born, Rabbit goes in to visit Janice. High
on painkillers, she is affectionate and forgiving. Rabbit cries
when she tells him Nelson asks every day when he'll return,
and Rabbit claims not to know why he ever left. Back in the
waiting room Rabbit is horrified when Eccles asks whether he's
going to Ruth's, and Rabbit accepts Eccles's invitation to
spend the night at his house.
Lucy Eccles wakes Rabbit after noon and gives him breakfast.
She tells him Eccles is ecstatic because he takes all the credit
for Rabbit's return to Janice. Rabbit thinks Lucy desires him
and is almost certain she winks at him as he leaves, reluctantly,
for the hospital, where Rabbit is surprised to encounter Harriet
Tothero, his old coach's wife, at the hospital. She takes him to
the room where Marty lies, having had two strokes. Rabbit is
shocked and repelled by the man's grotesque appearance,
utter helplessness, and inability to speak.
Feeling he has failed to communicate with Tothero, Rabbit
hurriedly goes to see Janice. Now that the painkillers have
worn off, she is angry with Rabbit for having deserted her, and
they quarrel. Rabbit is exasperated to learn Janice doesn't
know whether they still have an apartment; he was planning to
live there with Nelson until she gets out of the hospital. He
ridicules her, saying, "The trouble with you, kid, is you just don't
give a damn." They watch TV in relative peace until the nurse
takes Rabbit to see his daughter through a viewing window.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Rabbit feels awe at her tiny perfection. He decides he wants to
name her June and returns to Janice's room. She wants to
name the baby Rebecca after her mother. They settle on
Rebecca June.
Analysis
At the hospital Rabbit soothes his agitation as he often does
by reminiscing about his golden past. This time it is about his
girlfriend Mary Ann, whom he loved when he was at the height
of his basketball stardom. Rabbit's parents told Eccles earlier
Rabbit was completely changed for the worse when he
returned from his army service—compulsory in the 1950s. The
narrator reveals Mary Ann married another man while Rabbit
was in serving Texas. Mary Ann's marriage no doubt goes a
long way in explaining why Rabbit came home obsessed with
sexual conquest.
Rabbit's unsettling encounter with Tothero hints at the fate
that could one day be Rabbit's. Like Rabbit, Tothero was a
serial adulterer. Although Tothero's image of himself and
reputation did not suffer because of his actions, his wife's did.
Now Tothero is literally helpless, at the mercy of the woman he
mistreated and neglected for years. Rabbit senses she is
unmoved by Tothero's grotesque condition and will be free
when he dies. As if this weren't sinister enough, as Rabbit looks
at Tothero, his grotesque physical form recedes, and Rabbit
has an experience of direct perception of Tothero's soul. In
Part 1, Chapter 4 Rabbit climbed Mt. Judge expecting a vision
of the reality beneath the world of illusory appearances. His
expectation was specifically that he would be able to see, from
above, the dying soul of an old man. Nothing happened at the
time, but now Rabbit has this experience. It is horrifying,
however, because it is accompanied by the feeling he is
trapped "inside Tothero's skull." Rabbit cannot actually handle
the mystical experience he thought he wanted.
Sober and in pain, Janice no longer displays the unquestioning
adoration Rabbit has craved since he had it from Miriam. She
wants to express her anger, but Rabbit refuses to accept
blame as he continues to defend himself. After yesterday's
claim he didn't know why he left her, he can now think of
several reasons, all of which place the blame on her. Not only
was she a bad wife but when he went to get the car from her
mother's house the day he left, she had parked on the wrong
side of the road. Rabbit does not finish enunciating this thought
because Janice's lack of interest—and perhaps his realization
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Section Summaries 28
of sounding like a fool—stops him. Readers may recall in Part 1,
Section 1, Rabbit's all-night car trip began as an attempt to get
home without going through the town of Brewer, and he did
not decide he was heading for the Gulf of Mexico until he had
been driving for a while. It did not occur to Rabbit then to turn
the car around and drive home the short way, but perhaps it
occurs to him now.
Their dynamic spirals down until it is arrested, first by the
television, and then by Rabbit seeing his daughter for the first
time. Ironically, Rabbit now watches the TV with absorption in a
frivolous game show, despite his earlier criticisms at Janice for
her TV watching habit. He even indulges in a little unconscious
bigotry, characterizing the person on the TV as Jewish
because of the way they speak. Rabbit thus proves himself to
be a reflection of the mindlessness and bigotry of the era,
capable of condemning others in an instant but unable to see
his own actions. But when he sees his daughter and conveys
his excitement and pride, Janice believes he is committed to
changing his ways. The section closes with harmony restored
between husband and wife.
Part 2, Section 9
Summary
Rabbit lives in the apartment with Nelson while Janice is
recuperating in the hospital. He resigns as Mrs. Smith's
gardener and accepts a job selling used cars for Mr. Springer.
Upon his resignation Mrs. Smith tells Rabbit his presence has
been keeping her alive.
When he and Nelson visit Mrs. Springer, Rabbit feels he is back
in her good graces. Yet when he visits his mother and father
for the first time since leaving Janice, his mother's anger
baffles him until she expresses concern for Ruth's welfare.
When she criticizes Nelson's small hands by attributing them to
Springer genetics, Rabbit likes both his mother and son less. At
the playground with Nelson, Rabbit realizes his quest for
something else is futile, because what he seeks is here, buried
within his hometown. His life at home alone with his son and no
female presence is a new and disorienting experience for him
as they await Janice to return from the hospital with the new
baby. As the novel has fully explored Rabbit's sexual life as
part of his seemingly endless energies, the section includes his
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
turning to masturbation as a means of gaining release from
tension.
When Janice returns home, Rabbit is fascinated by the
appearance of her lactating breasts and waits to sleep with her
because he is grateful and proud she has accepted her
purpose of breeding and feeding his young. At Eccles's urging,
Rabbit happily attends church. He goes to the service feeling
lucky and intending to give thanks, but his attention shifts from
the dry, irritatingly repetitive service to a woman in front of him
who turns out to be Lucy Eccles. After the service Rabbit
declines Lucy's invitation for coffee. In his refusal he makes it
clear he believes she is propositioning him for sex, which he
would gladly accept were it not for his renewed commitment to
his wife. She slams the door in his face, and Rabbit, excited by
her refusal, returns home perversely determined to have sex
with Janice.
Analysis
In this section Rabbit's quest reaches several turning points.
He has been looking for something he cannot name, but his
observation of Nelson at the playground leads him to
understand the quest as useless. Realizing he has been
searching for the glory of his youth, he realizes his youth is
forever lost. His son's life has taken Rabbit's youth away, and
now it is Nelson's turn to experience what Rabbit has been
trying to recreate. In becoming a parent Rabbit has handed the
ease, bliss, and innocence of youth to his son.
Having dropped his quest for lost youth, Rabbit can now shift
his attention away from despair and toward objectifying his
wife to feed his appetites. It pleases Rabbit to imagine her as
"a white, pliant machine for loving, hatching, feeding," and his
pleasure is increased by his notion she thinks of herself in the
same way. However he does not make the connection
between his lust for impregnating women and mourning his
youth, forever lost to parenthood.
Rabbit's attempts at participating in religion as a way to give
shape and structure to his spiritual impulses are weak and half-
hearted. In fact his effort ends as soon as he sits down in the
church and sees the back of a woman's head. Rabbit makes no
differentiation between the ecstasies of his lust and the
ecstasies attached to nonsexual experiences. One is as good
as the other, and, more important, Rabbit can experience the
ecstasy of lust with great ease any time he likes. As the
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Section Summaries 29
narrator notes, although Rabbit barely listens to Eccles's
sermon, its message of suffering, hard work, and dedication as
necessary to spiritual growth would not appeal to Rabbit. A
weak-willed pleasure seeker, "he lacks the mindful will to walk
the straight line of a paradox." Hedonism—and avoidance of
pain, whether emotional or spiritual suffering—is Rabbit's
central flaw, which explains his inability to commit and his
patterns of fleeing and returning.
Rabbit's male-dominated world revolves around him—his
desires, his needs, his views—and he projects them onto
others. Seeing Lucy as desirable he easily "flatters himself" she
desires him as well. Her invitation to coffee is thus a flattering
confirmation, to Rabbit, of Lucy's intentions.
What doesn't occur to Rabbit is Lucy is a more forward-looking
woman who actually looks toward the more liberated 1960s
than the conventional 1950s, which Rabbit's actions and
emotions reflect. That Lucy is the minister's wife and offering
friendship don't occur to Rabbit in his frame of mind, and he
doesn't understand how he has offended her.
Part 2, Section 10
Summary
Back from church Rabbit finds his lust for Janice dampened by
the baby's constant crying. The entire family senses a warning
in Rebecca June's cries, but cannot understand it. Rabbit
keeps pushing Janice to relax with a drink, which makes her
suspicious. When it gets dark, Rebecca June stops crying.
Janice finally allows Rabbit to fix her a drink. In bed that night,
he insists on having sex with her, despite her exhaustion, clear
opposition, and the doctor's order to abstain for six weeks
after giving birth. Rabbit becomes angry when Janice tells him
he is using her. "I'm not your whore, Harry," she says. He
responds by telling Janice what matters is how he feels, and he
doesn't care to imagine her feelings. He forces himself on her
and leaves.
Alone once again Janice feels miserable and deeply hurt. Since
childhood Janice has felt anxiety because nobody really knows
anyone else's feelings. She begins to drink steadily and at the
same time to be aware of a presence with her in the house.
She tries to ignore the presence, as it makes her self-
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
conscious. By the time morning comes, she is quite drunk. The
baby's diaper needs changing, but Janice congratulates herself
on realizing she is too drunk to change it without harming the
infant.
At 11 a.m. her father calls because Rabbit hasn't shown up to
work at the car lot. Janice lies and says Rabbit had a work
appointment out of town. Her mother immediately calls back
and chastises Janice for being drunk. Sensing Rabbit has left
Janice again, Mrs. Springer scolds her daughter because she
keeps "bringing us all into disgrace." Despite Janice's protest,
Mrs. Springer announces she'll be at Janice's apartment in 20
minutes.
The house is a mess, and the baby's diaper is still dirty. Janice
frantically tries to clean the house before her mother's arrival.
As she runs around straightening up, Janice resents both her
mother and her daughter for being impatient and demanding.
Janice fills the bathtub, intending to clean the infant. When she
puts Rebecca in the water, the baby sinks. By the time Janice
is able to catch hold of Rebecca, the baby has drowned. Janice
knows "the worst thing that has ever happened to any woman"
has just happened. Her "sense of the third person with them
widens enormously," and her mother's knocking sounds at the
front door.
Analysis
In this section the narrator presents Janice's perspective for
the first time. Janice's long internal monologue suggests she is
a complex, sensitive, and perceptive woman—certainly a
contradiction of Rabbit's view of her as a "mutt" and "dumb"
and Mrs. Angstrom's assertion Janice is a scheming
manipulator. Janice has suffered because she has shouldered
the blame for Rabbit's abandonment. Essentially passive,
fearful, and used to traditional roles of dominant males and
submissive females, she feels the stinging situational irony in
their situation: "it was his bad deed yet she was supposed to
not have any pride afterwards to just be a pot for his dirt."
Janice has suffered from anxiety and a sense of not being
good enough since her mother made her feel that way as a
child. In his blatant refusal to consider her feelings, Rabbit has
triggered a sense of loneliness and alienation that have made
Janice feel "panicky," a feeling she has had since she was
young. Janice's thoughts reveal she feels as Rabbit does about
their marriage: it has been a big disappointment. Although she
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Section Summaries 30
thought being away from her critical, overbearing mother
would finally bring her happiness and self-confidence, she
finds herself locked into a difficult domesticity with Rabbit, a
"conceited lunk who wasn't good for anything in the world,"
according to her father. While Rabbit flees in search of
something he had in his youth and lost, Janice has never had
the thing she always wanted. Trapped by her responsibilities,
bearing the blame for her husband's discontent in addition to
her mother's, Janice confronts the hopelessness of her
situation by drinking.
The section ends as Janice realizes she has just drowned
Rebecca June. However, Updike presents the events leading
to the drowning in a way that suggests the blame for the
infant's death is not Janice's alone. The accident seems clearly
a result of Janice's being drunk, but she is drunk only after her
husband urged her to start drinking, forced himself on her, and
left her alone. The accident also results from Janice's frantic
rushing, brought on by fear of what her mother would say
about a messy house and an infant who has soiled herself.
In addition the constant shadowy, unknown presence
inhabiting the house, begins soon after Rabbit returns from
church. This presence "seems to grab Rebecca," causing her
to cry. After Rabbit leaves, Janice becomes self-conscious,
anxious, and despondent in response to this presence.
Watching TV static Janice has "a feeling of some other person
standing behind her." As she struggles to take off Rebecca's
diaper, Janice speaks cruelly to her daughter, "feeling that the
sound of her voice is holding off the other person who is
gathering in the room." This "third person" becomes larger and
larger in Janice's perception as she goes through the first
anguished moments of understanding that her newborn
daughter has now died. The presence, or person, seems to
have taken the baby's life, just as much as human events have
conspired to produce the accidental drowning. The text leaves
open the possibility that Rebecca's death is willed by a
supernatural entity that occupies the home, using the
characters to bring about the outcome.
Part 3, Section 11
Summary
Mrs. Springer calls the Eccles house with news of the baby's
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
death and asks Eccles to find Rabbit. Just then Rabbit calls
Eccles from a drugstore in Brewer, wondering if something is
amiss at his house. After leaving Janice Rabbit spent the night
in a hotel and the next day window-shopping in Mt. Judge.
"Something held him back all day" from returning home. He
now realizes he was hoping "to find an opening" to another
place where "there was something better for him" than the
dreary duties of parenthood and work. Now Rabbit realizes this
"something" has "murdered his daughter."
He goes to the Springers' house. Mrs. Springer slams the door
in his face, but Eccles lets him in. Mr. Springer tells Rabbit he
doesn't place the entire blame on Rabbit, for he and his wife
share some responsibility for failing to nurture Janice properly.
They must all move forward; Rabbit is still part of their family
and still has his job. Rabbit is grateful to keep his "end of the
bargain."
Rabbit returns to the apartment. Although he has let the water
out of the tub, he is frightened he will enter the bathroom to
find "a tiny wrinkled blue corpse" in the bathtub. He asks for
forgiveness "silently to no one."
The next morning, Tuesday, Rabbit returns to the Springers
and tells Janice the baby's death was his fault, not hers.
Tothero comes to visit Rabbit, claiming he warned Rabbit and
begged him to return to Janice. When Rabbit asks Tothero
what he should do, Tothero ignores the question and persists
in demanding confirmation he warned Rabbit about this
outcome. Tothero tells Rabbit, "You're still a fine man. You have
a healthy body." Rabbit is saddened by the visit and glad when
Tothero leaves.
Eccles tells Rabbit the funeral will be the next afternoon. When
Rabbit asks Eccles what he should do, Eccles advises he be
good to his family and appreciate what he has. But Rabbit
objects: what about "that thing behind everything?" Eccles
reminds Rabbit he doesn't believe such a thing exists. He tells
Rabbit the tragedy has "united" him with his wife "in a sacred
way."
Early Wednesday morning Rabbit dreams he understands
death and will share this knowledge by starting a new religion.
Waking up, however, he no longer has this understanding. In
fact "he realizes that he has nothing to tell the world." As he
and Janice return from the Springers' to their apartment to
dress for the funeral, Rabbit feels panicked by deep questions
about the circumstances of his life. He feels as if he is
watching himself from outside, as if he stepped outside "to
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Section Summaries 31
watch the engine run" and realized he was merely "a vibration"
that "now can't get back in."
Back at the Springers' house Rabbit once again earns the
family's scorn by cruelly criticizing Janice for wearing her
mother's dress since she has nothing of her own that fits. He
sits and waits for the funeral, dreading his mother's reaction
and wishing she were dead. He rides to the funeral home with
the Springers, and his parents soon arrive. His mother rushes
up to him, exclaiming, "Hassy, what have they done to you?"
The Springers ignore this, and as the two families try to mingle
calmly and courteously, Rabbit feels the outer world matters
less and less. Eccles gives a eulogy for the deceased infant.
Despite this stiff delivery, Rabbit feels the truth of the Biblical
words about eternal life and is moved to tears.
Around 4 p.m. the funeral party moves to the cemetery on the
slopes of Mt. Judge. By now Rabbit has passed through grief
to a kind of elation, sure his daughter is in heaven. He feels
strong now. As the casket is lowered, "the sky greets him."
However the sight of Janice's grief-filled face prompts him to
snap once again: "Don't look at me ... I didn't kill her." He
explains to the crowd, "You all keep acting as if I did it. I wasn't
anywhere near. She's the one." The look of horror on his
mother's face "blinds" Rabbit with "a suffocating sense of
injustice," and he begins to run up the mountainside.
He loses Eccles's pursuit as he runs into the woods. As the
woods grow thicker, he becomes frightened by "a whisper ... all
around him." The whisper grows louder as he stumbles upon
the ruins of a house. He is horrified as he realizes the dark
woods were once home to people like him and therefore were
"self-conscious." Aware of a voice trying to speak to him,
Rabbit feels "lit by a great spark ... whereby the blind tumble of
matter recognized itself." He runs from this sense of the
"encounter a terrible God willed" all the way to the Pinnacle
Hotel. It is 5:40 when he phones the Eccles residence, and
Lucy hangs up on him.
He goes to Ruth, who is hostile and knows about the baby's
death. Guessing she is pregnant, he is pleased and encourages
her to have the baby because it feels right to him. "Who cares?
That's the thing. Who cares what you feel?" Ruth exclaims,
exasperated. She tells him he's responsible for his child's
death. In fact he is "Mr. Death himself ... worse than nothing."
He is preoccupied with a fear she has already had an abortion,
but she tells him she was unable to go through with the
procedure. Saying her parents know about the pregnancy,
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Ruth gives Rabbit an ultimatum: either divorce Janice and
marry her, or she will abort the fetus and cut him out of her life
forever.
Preoccupied with hunger and lust, Rabbit barely listens. He
waits for her to finish, then announces he'll get lunch for them.
Outside the apartment Rabbit finds the situation more
complicated, and he begins to weigh his options. As he walks,
the outer world seems to become weightless, and his internal
experience seems the only real thing. As he stands on the
curb, poised at the decision to run or return to his
responsibilities, the houses "twitch and shift in the corner of his
eye." Propelled by this illusion, Rabbit runs, again.
Analysis
The question of who is responsible for Rebecca June's death
looms large throughout this final section. Initially Rabbit
accepts all the responsibility. His feelings of guilt appear
alongside his sense of shock and despair at the news.
However, during the course of the funeral, Rabbit experiences
a rapid catharsis. By the time the funeral is over, he is relieved
of all feelings of guilt and sorrow, elated in the certainty
everything is now all right. His smug and selfish spiritual pride
has resolved—and absolved—all questions of his own guilt.
But Janice is not selfish and has not experienced such
catharsis, and seeing she is still grieving angers Rabbit. Having
neither love nor empathy for anyone else's grief, he lashes out
at his wife and accuses her publicly of killing his child. He feels
justice and truth demand Janice's guilt and his innocence be
acknowledged by all. Expecting his mother to be on his side, as
always, he is unable to bear her horrified reaction. Instead of
considering his mother's opinion might be accurate, Rabbit
feels himself the victim of a great injustice. In a desperate and
unthinking attempt to keep his pride and sense of security
intact, Rabbit turns and runs from his daughter's grave. In
doing so he signals rejection of his position as an individual
with any part to play in human society. Always a fan of the easy
way out, Rabbit prefers to reject everyone and everything he
knows rather than take a serious look at himself.
Rabbit seeks the woods, expecting to find in nature a space
empty of all consciousness except his own. However, to his
horror, Rabbit feels a consciousness and presence that seems
to be pursuing him, attempting to communicate with him. The
apex of this horror occurs when he stumbles across evidence
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Section Summaries 32
indicating the woods were once inhabited by people who, like
himself and like those he has just run from, possessed self-
awareness. Rabbit is experiencing the presence of what might
be called God, the "thing behind everything" he has always
known was there. But instead of this encounter lifting Rabbit's
ego, as he expects, he cowers in terror before it. This act
confirms Rabbit's spiritual, mystical posturing has been nothing
more than reflections of his deluded ego. Faced with what he
has sought, Rabbit lacks the strength to bear it. He is not God
but rather a cruel, selfish, immoral, and weak human being.
Worse, there is no escape, for he has been seen and judged by
God.
Rabbit distracts himself from this hellish despair by turning his
thoughts, once again, to sex. However, the consequences of
his actions await him at Ruth's. The situation has become
complex, and Rabbit is unable to force her into easy
submission to his sexual will. He is also unable to persuade her
to keep their baby and that Janice, not he, is responsible for
Rebecca June's death. Ruth pinpoints the assumption at the
heart of Rabbit's monumentally selfish and irresponsible
behavior: how Rabbit feels matters more than anything else in
the world. Rabbit brushes off her words, as usual, and assumes
he will sleep with her after he brings them lunch.
However, as he leaves the apartment, Rabbit is less certain of
returning to Ruth. He sees two paths before him: "the right
way" of complexity and duty and the "good way" of simple
flight in search of something he likes better. "Goodness lies
within, there is nothing outside," Rabbit decides.
Unconsciously, instinctively, he begins to run. This flight recalls
the manner of Rabbit's initial flight at the beginning, when his
unconscious instinct rather than his rational awareness sends
him driving away from Mt. Judge rather than returning home to
Janice. Like the creature he is, Rabbit's body moves on instinct,
his mind catching up with his instinct only after it has propelled
him in one direction or another.
This circularity underscores how Rabbit's quest for deeper
truth and meaning has pushed him farther away from truth and
understanding. His quest has led him to abandon respect for
external authority, caused him to damage the lives of those
close to him, and left him convinced he is always the center
and meaning of his own universe.
Updike suggests humanity's drive to find meaning in life is
easily thwarted by another very human drive, the impulse to
avoid complexity, suffering, and unpleasantness. A healthy
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
society would have guides possessing the authority and ability
to direct the seeker along the difficult path toward true
understanding. But when a society abandons traditional
collective values to embrace the shiny, shallow pleasures and
freedoms of individualism and consumer choice, such spiritual
quests are almost certain to backfire, as they have in the
unhappy life of Rabbit Angstrom.
g Quotes
"Fraud makes the world go round."
— Narrator, Part 1, Section 1
Rabbit comes home and finds Janice watching Disney's The
Mickey Mouse Club on television. Jimmie, a character on the
show, addresses children through worn, simplified Christian
platitudes. Rabbit watches Jimmie tell his young audience the
way to be happy is through self-knowledge. He speaks and
sings in platitudes, then puckers his mouth and winks. To
Rabbit Jimmie is selling something that doesn't work, or is so
watered down as to be useless. Applying Jimmie's action to
MagiPeel, the product he sells, Rabbit appreciates—and
mimics—this gesture because of its situational irony,
suggesting the whole culture is conspiring to perpetuate the
fraud, or the false promises, that underlies society.
"He never knows what the hell
she'll do. She doesn't know
herself. Dumb."
— Narrator, Part 1, Section 1
Rabbit realizes he doesn't have the key for the car Janice has
left parked in front of her parents' house. He not only blames
her for being careless and distracted, he judges her character.
This is the second time in Part 1, Section 1 Rabbit has called
Janice stupid. However Rabbit finds Janice has left the keys
for him inside the unlocked car. "Bless that dope," he then
thinks to himself.
Copyright © 2019 Course Hero, Inc.
Quotes 33
"Is it just these people I'm outside,
or is it all America?"
— Narrator, Part 1, Section 1
Rabbit stops at a rural café in West Virginia in the middle of the
night. He feels acutely he is different from everyone else in the
place: they regard him as a stranger, and he feels like one as
well. Rabbit considers his feeling of alienation with respect to
his previous belief in America's homogeneity. Yet Rabbit, in his
flights and quests, is indeed alienated from others who don't
feel or act as he does.
"You can't understand an old
man's hunger, you eat and eat and
it's never the right food."
— Marty Tothero, Part 1, Section 2
Tothero wakes Rabbit and announces they're going to dinner.
He asks if Rabbit is hungry but is in a state of excitement and
doesn't listen for the answer. What Tothero is really expressing
is his excitement at the night with the prostitute Margaret
Kosko he has planned. Sexual desire is the "old man's hunger"
Tothero speaks of. He implies despite his advanced age, no
matter how much sex he has, the urge for more never goes
away. He also implies attempts to satisfy his lust by distracting
himself with other activities do nothing to diminish it.
"After you're first-rate at
something ... it kind of takes the
kick out of being second-rate."
— Rabbit Angstrom, Part 1, Section 4
During their first conversation Eccles seeks to understand why
Rabbit walked out on Janice. When he realizes Rabbit thinks of
himself as special and asks why, Rabbit has a ready answer: he
has already experienced his own excellence through
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
basketball, and his relationship with his wife doesn't measure
up to the feelings he had on the court.
"It seems plain, standing here ...
the true space in which we live is
upward space."
— Narrator, Part 1, Section 4
Standing atop Mt. Judge and expecting the unseen to reveal
itself to him, Rabbit wonders why what seems obvious to him is
lost on those around him, specifically Jack Eccles and Ruth
Leonard. They have challenged his belief that reality is a
hidden dimension within the illusory and visible world. Rabbit
fails to understand his dedication to this invisible world is not a
sign of his being more in touch with truth. Rather it comes at
the expense of his responsible participation in the visible world.
Rabbit doesn't grasp that he has moral duties to others,
whether or not the visible world is truly "real."
"Somewhere behind all this ...
there's something that wants me
to find it."
— Rabbit Angstrom, Part 1, Section 5
Rabbit Angstrom explains his core belief to Jack Eccles as
they drive through a half-suburbanized wilderness on the side
of Mt. Judge on their way to the golf course. Dismissive, Eccles
tells Rabbit he is just another deluded "vagrant" who believes
his irresponsibility is actually a "quest." Rabbit is offended.
"Christianity isn't looking for a
rainbow ... We're trying to serve
God, not be God."
— Jack Eccles, Part 1, Section 5
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Quotes 34
Jack Eccles believes Rabbit misunderstands a fundamental
distinction in Christianity. Rabbit is looking for something
bright, beautiful and awe-inspiring, as he had with basketball.
Eccles tries to correct Rabbit, but in doing so he seems to be
speaking as much about his own actions as a minister as he is
about Rabbit's devotion to life's extraordinary moments.
Eccles's meddling in the lives of his parishioners, trying to fix
their problems, is later criticized by Kruppenbach as his
attempt to fix what only God can. Somewhere in these varying
definitions of Christianity throughout the book, Updike may be
giving approximate meanings of what faith may actually be and
can offer to troubled souls if they can find it.
"He is certain that as a
consequence of his sin Janice or
the baby will die."
— Narrator, Part 2, Section 7
Rabbit Angstrom shows startling foresight as he faces his own
anxiety and guilt for his sin—a mixture of flight, cruelty,
obscenity, and conceit—in the waiting room of the hospital
while Janice is in labor. The baby does in fact die a few weeks
later in a startling foreshadowing come true of his feelings at
the crucial moment of the baby's birth.
"He feels ... caught in chains of
transparent slime, ghosts of ...
urgent ejaculations he has spat
into ... women."
— Narrator, Part 2, Section 7
Rabbit realizes the trap from which he seeks to free himself is
of his own making. This is an example of Updike's use of nets
or traps, which Rabbit mentions to explain whatever is
specifically troubling him. In the car the map that failed to lead
him south becomes the net. Here, while he waits in the hospital
and Janice is in labor, Rabbit's own semen becomes the
substance of the net as he realizes his unrestrained and
irresponsible indulgence of lust has trapped him into the duties
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
of parenthood. The rabbit as both prey and breeder is
embodied here.
"The thing that had left his life had
left irrevocably ... No flight would
reach it."
— Narrator, Part 2, Section 9
Playing with Nelson at the playground in Mt. Judge, Rabbit
realizes he wants his own youth, but he will never recover it
because he has handed it to his son. The loss of his youth,
Rabbit feels, makes him "junk." As a parent Rabbit is expected
to stop living for himself and devote his life to nurturing his son.
Because his own peak experiences are the only things Rabbit
values, and they are tied up in a past now gone, Rabbit feels his
life is worthless and meaningless.
"Underneath everything, he
possesses ... a dominance over
her, and ... she is prepared for this
dominance."
— Narrator, Part 2, Section 9
As Rabbit walks with Lucy Eccles back to the Eccles house
after attending church, he feels sure he is in control of the
situation, and she will submit to his authority. He sees his
authority as a fundamental attribute of being a man, just as her
subservience is a fundamental attribute of being a woman.
Rabbit's misogynistic hubris is challenged moments later when
she slams the door in his face after he implies he would sleep
with her were it not for his fresh recommitment to Janice. That
night he reasserts his male authority by forcing himself on his
wife.
"How easy it was, yet in all His
strength God did nothing. Just that
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Quotes 35
little rubber stopper to lift."
— Narrator, Part 2, Section 10
After the baby's death, Rabbit returns to the apartment alone
and drains the bathwater that drowned his daughter. He
believes God could have prevented her death with as much
effort as he now pulls out the drain stopper. For some reason
the all-powerful, all-seeing God Rabbit sometimes believes in
chose to let his daughter die. Rabbit's thoughts suggest he is
blaming or criticizing God for neglecting his duty, but it is his
terror at human powerlessness that underlies this attitude.
"He obscurely feels lit by a great
spark, the spark whereby the blind
tumble of matter recognized
itself."
— Narrator, Part 3, Section 11
Duality collapses for Rabbit in the woods as he flees the
cemetery where his daughter's funeral is being held. After
stumbling through ever deeper, darker, more labyrinthine
forest, he comes across the ruins of an old home. His irritation
and confusion at navigating the forest turn to horror when he
realizes nature is peopled by ghosts and thus has a self-
consciousness like his own—which he will one day lose.
"'It's O.K.,' he'll tell him, 'I'm on the
way. I mean, I think there are
several ways.'"
— Narrator, Part 3, Section 11
After Rabbit says Janice killed their daughter and flees from
the infant's fresh grave, he imagines what he will say when he
calls Jack Eccles from the Pinnacle Hotel. Eccles believes he
engineered Rabbit's return to Janice, counting it his first
professional success. Rabbit knows this and now wants to
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
reassure his friend this present flight doesn't mean Eccles has
failed—Rabbit is now securely on the correct path. However, in
amending his statement about "the way" to refer to "several
ways," Rabbit reveals he is as confused as ever about where
he is going, what he is doing, and why.
l Symbols
Ice
Following his first sexual encounter with Ruth Leonard in Part
1, Section 3, Rabbit has a symbolic dream which foreshadows
the night's significance in all of their fates. The dream features
a cake of ice that upsets the women in his dream. Rabbit
recognizes this cake of ice as the same kind of ice produced
by the local ice plant. The ice in the dream symbolizes Rabbit's
unborn daughter, and the reactions of the women to the ice's
presence foreshadow the emotional distress that Rabbit's
infidelity and irresponsibility will cause in his real life.
The local ice plant is a prominent symbol in the novel of the
automaticity and compulsion to engage in reproduction. Ice as
a substance represents the "freezing" of the individual's
freedom as a result of the responsibilities that reproduction
brings. Rabbit's observation of the ice having a skin that
overlays "hundreds of clear white veins like the capillaries on a
leaf" and at its core a "jagged cloud, the star of an explosion,
whose center is uncertain in refraction" terrifies him. This
jagged cloud at the center suggests something exists beyond
mere plant or animal biology alive in this ice and brings to mind
the idea of a human soul or spirit.
That the ice represents a human life is further emphasized by
the icebox it sits in, a metal-walled cave "mottled with the same
disease the linoleum has." The icebox and the linoleum are ugly
and diseased in the same way. This image brings to mind the
idea the icebox is actually the womb of a woman with whom
Rabbit shares a home, and he finds both the woman and the
home repugnant. The obvious connection is to Janice, in her
third trimester of pregnancy, and to the apartment whose ugly
disorder he has just fled. When Janice's face starts melting,
horrifying Rabbit, the death of their daughter Rebecca June in
the novel's final section is foreshadowed.
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Symbols 36
The Map
In Part 1, Section 1, Rabbit takes a road trip, intending to reach
the southern boundary of the country. Instead, he ends up
spending the night driving in a confused circle, only to find
himself back where he started the next morning. When first
setting out, Rabbit stops at a gas station outside of Brewer and
asks the attendant for a map. The attendant has no map, but
he does question where Rabbit is going and how he intends to
get there if he doesn't know his destination. Rabbit scoffs at
the man's assertion, and later, when he finds himself headed
back home, he blames the man not having a map for his failure
to reach his destination.
Rabbit does buy a map later on in the trip, but instead of
clarifying the way, its symbols and lines dissolve and merge so
that Rabbit is unable to extract meaning from it. His reaction is
to destroy it: "He claws at it and tears it; with a gasp of
exasperation he rips away a great triangular piece." Once it is
in pieces, Rabbit holds the torn map out the car window, and it
"explodes, and the bent scraps like disembodied wings flicker
back over the top of the car." Rabbit is on a quest for the thing
he most values—the way he felt when he was a boy playing
basketball—and wants a guide to show him the way. On the
court he transcends ordinary reality and its limitations and
steps into an altered state that feels more real than normal
experience. Rabbit does not know how to get there or even
what to call it, but he searches for it continually. The road trip
and the map are Rabbit's first attempt to find it, by movement
through space to some other part of the country. Rabbit's
destructive retaliation against the map for failing to lead him to
the object of his quest indicates his confusion and his
tendency to blame externals for his own feelings and behavior.
Ruins on Mt. Judge
Since childhood Rabbit has had meaningful encounters with
the "cellar pit dug by some brave and monstrous settler
centuries ago," which is hidden in the deep, thick forest atop
Mt. Judge. These ruins symbolize the impermanence of human
life and achievement, and Rabbit's response to them
symbolizes the anxiety inherent in the human experience.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide Themes 37

Rabbit's experience on the top of Mt. Judge suggests to him as the homestead whose ruins he examines arose out of the
that man is but a temporary manifestation of God-like unconscious forest, an expression of the conscious will of the
consciousness within inert, unconscious matter. Gazing at the pioneer who built it. And just as death has made ruins of this
ruins like they are a mirror into his future, he experiences once-human place and its inhabitants, so will Rabbit's little
anxiety, knowing that all his efforts and strivings cannot spark be one day extinguished, his consciousness removed
prevent death from one day separating his consciousness from from this physical plane. This revelation makes Rabbit feel
his body and leaving his body, and his works, to rot. vulnerable and terrified. In horror he flees from the place as
well as from what it has revealed to him.
Rabbit addresses himself as he recalls the effect encountering
these ruins had upon him when he was a child: "You become
vividly frightened, as if this other sign of life will call attention to
yourself." The place felt sinister to young Rabbit, who sensed
m Themes
its former human inhabitants had imbued it with a
consciousness capable of watching and judging him, and his
response was to run until he was "safe on the firm blacktop."
Rabbit's childhood experiences of an unseen, conscious Gender Relations
presence in the cellar and surrounding woods have influenced
his worldview as an adult. In Section 5, he tells Jack Eccles as
they play golf on the side of Mt. Judge, "I do feel ... that For Rabbit Angstrom, women are capable of bringing great joy
somewhere behind all this ... there's something that wants me and dark despair. The morning after his first sexual encounter
to find it." The narrator confirms the importance of this idea in with Ruth, Rabbit considers the dual nature of women and their
Section 9, noting many of Rabbit's "actions ... constitute importance to his own sense of self-worth: "Either they give,
transactions with" the "unseen world," which his instinct tells like a plant, or scrape, like a stone." Rabbit's next thought
him lies within ordinary, visible reality. implies nothing feels worse than a woman's ill will: "In all the
green world nothing feels as good as a woman's good nature."
In Section 3, when Rabbit senses Ruth dislikes him as they
Rabbit attempts to deny he is vulnerable to female power by
walk to her house to have sex for the first time, he tries to
seeking to possess and dominate women. In Rabbit's theory by
redeem himself by telling her about the cellar on the mountain.
dominating a woman he can take what he needs from her
He tells her, "Once I came across an old house, just a hole in
without risking emotional wounds.
the ground with some stones, where I guess a pioneer had a
farm." Ruth is unimpressed because Rabbit has failed to
communicate the significance of his experiences there, and
Men and Women
the subject is dropped as they start bickering. As the narrative
progresses, however, Rabbit becomes increasingly attuned to Rabbit holds himself in considerable esteem and is
his inward experiences of connection with an unseen comfortable emotionally in a male-dominated world in which
presence. These experiences assume increasing importance women are necessary for sex, reproduction, and domestic
as they lift him, temporarily, into a feeling of clarity and power duties. He considers himself an individual, both superior and
that makes the frustrating mess of his outward life recede. alienated, on a quest. However, in Rabbit's mind, women are
not individuals, as he is, but objects belonging to a class of
Just when he begins to feel his communion with this unseen
similar objects. They exist primarily as bodies meant to serve
realm frees him, like a god, from any claims or judgments the
the sexual appetites of men. Although they do possess a
external world puts on him, Rabbit stumbles across the cellar
limited subjectivity, or self-awareness, they lack the ability to
in the woods again. His desire to encounter and understand
understand their desires and motivations. Male intelligence is
"the thing behind everything" (Part 3, Section 11) is fulfilled, and
better able to understand what drives women more than
Rabbit clearly sees the nature of his existence. His life is but "a
women themselves can understand it. However, this
spark struck in the collision of two opposed realms, an
understanding is not always easy "because [women] want
encounter a terrible God willed." His consciousness has arisen
different things; they're a different race." The one exception is
because God willed it out of "the blind tumble of matter," just

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Rabbit, Run Study Guide
his mother. He glories in her unquestioning acceptance of him,
yet the instant she revokes this acceptance, Rabbit rejects her.
In doing so he rejects relationships with women as well as his
role as an individual who is part of society.
Two events in Rabbit's young adult life may have skewed his
idea of normal male-female relationships. While he was in the
army, his high school love Mary Ann married another man. At
the same time, Rabbit was hurt and angered by his experience
with a prostitute, realizing her enjoyment was a performance
put on by simple economic motivation. "Sweet woman, she was
money," Rabbit thinks with scorn. He still smarts from this
realization, some eight years later.
Mothers and Sons
Rabbit's parents agree he came back from the army changed
for the worse. However Rabbit's wounds from Mary Ann and
the prostitute echo his relationship with his mother. Rabbit lives
in his bygone youth, and his mother reinforces his immature
irresponsibility by continuing to coddle him as if he were a
young child, guiltless and precious. Rabbit can always count on
his mother's being on his side, no matter what—for him this is
both justice and safety.
Yet the power of the relationship makes it frightening. Rabbit
dreads seeing his mother at his daughter's funeral, because
she and he are "not even in a way separate people ... and if she
gave him life she can take it away." Her idea of him is the core
of his understanding both of himself and of the world. She is
the distorted mirror that reflects Rabbit to himself; he has no
other conscience.
Rabbit's worst fear comes true when he announces publicly
"he had a baby and his wife drowned it." This sounds like
something his mother—who has always viewed her son as a
victim of his manipulative, "poison" wife—might say. However
this callousness stuns even his mother, whose face is
"horrified, blank with shock, a wall against him." For the first
time Mrs. Angstrom has reacted to her son's cruelty and not
defended him. For Rabbit and his inflated ego, his mother's
disapproval is an intolerable violation of truth and justice. In an
instant Rabbit's world threatens to implode, so he begins to run
up the hill. This is the metaphorical death he feared his mother
could inflict upon him: Rabbit rejects her power over him by
running up the mountain. The spatial dominance he achieves in
doing so reflects his choice to reject not only his mother but all
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Themes 38
his relationships grounded in the town below.
Weak Authority and the Loss of
Values
In Rabbit's 1950s American culture, authority figures like
coaches and ministers, as well as the mass media of television
and radio, would often transmit guiding values. In his search for
meaning and fulfillment in life, Rabbit tries each of these
supposed guides before rejecting their authority as fraudulent.
As his search continues, it grows ever more frantic and
confused. In the end, only Rabbit's own thoughts, feelings, and
desires remain to guide him. They speak to him in dreams, and
when Rabbit finally rejects everything that is not himself, his
waking life attains the surreal qualities, alternately euphoric
and terrifying, of a dream.
Rabbit's final dream comes after his daughter's death.
Explaining death in terms of two flowers, the cowslip and the
elder, and the eclipsing movement of the moon over the sun,
this dream is the only one he seems to understand clearly. The
dream's meaning arises from a bygone era when people lived
under the authority of nature's rhythms, guided by the
knowledge and folkloric traditions that had been built over
generations around these rhythms. The cowslip's name
reflects these roots, being a corruption of the Old English term
for "cow dung," since the flowers appeared in pastures where
cows grazed and left their droppings. Humankind's long
relationship with the flower is made evident by references to
the plant in the writings of 1st-century AD Roman naturalist
Pliny the Elder, as well as its importance to the religious rituals
and herbology of the Celtic druids, who inhabited much of
present-day Europe in the last centuries BC. Rabbit knows
nothing of these traditions, such as herbalism or astronomy,
but somehow they have reached through the past into Rabbit's
subconscious. Rabbit trusts absolutely the authority of the
dream's message, and spreading it will be his life's path going
forward. When Rabbit awakens, however, "he realizes it was a
dream, that he has nothing to tell the world, and the knot
regathers in his chest." The dream reinforces the idea that
once there was a path that broke long ago. It is now present
only as a sense of absence, the path so fragmented it is
impossible to walk.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
The post-atomic, industrial, consumer age in which Rabbit lives
has rejected this path. Instead Rabbit has a television, which
pipes the inane and fraudulent "Mickey Mouse" wisdom into his
home. He has a car and a detailed map that doesn't
correspond to the reality Rabbit encounters. Instead of guiding
him, it overrides Rabbit's intuition and almost causes a collision
on an obscure road. Rabbit next looks to the cultural
institutions of sport and religion for guidance, but finds his old
coach, Marty Tothero, and the Episcopal minister, Jack Eccles,
have no guidance to give him. On the contrary, each wants
something from Rabbit to solve their own existential despair.
They want Rabbit to need their help to make them feel useful
and validated. They, too, have nothing to tell the world, the
difference being they pretend they do.
Marty Tothero's attempts to play the role of wise elder are
either ignored or ridiculed. In fact they make Rabbit feel
ashamed and depressed. Tothero, an alcoholic, scolds Rabbit
for being immature in leaving his wife and makes him promise
they'll find a way to help her. A few hours later Tothero is
bouncing around the room insisting Rabbit wake up and
accompany him to meet two prostitutes. He tells Rabbit
"women are monkeys" and continues at length about how he,
himself, is "a person to be abhorred." Having gone away and
returned, Rabbit is shocked by how the coach who brought him
to his greatness on the court is actually a grotesque, groveling
windbag who lives alone in a room at the Sunshine Athletic
Association.
Jack Eccles wants to be Rabbit's spiritual guide, but their
dynamic is more like a boys' friendship, with Rabbit the leader
and Eccles the eager sidekick. Rabbit is immediately
suspicious of Eccles, who doesn't condemn his abandonment
of his family, violates traffic laws, chain smokes, and tells
Rabbit upon meeting him "You're a better man than I." A well-
intentioned fraud, Eccles knows the facts of Christianity but
lacks faith. With the absence of this inner core, Eccles has
fashioned his more modern ministry to help parishioners with
their personal problems and to socialize with his youth group.
He wants Rabbit to demonstrate his spiritual connection so
that he, Eccles, may come to believe, for Rabbit knows
something exists, whereas Eccles doesn't "think that thing
exists."
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Themes 39
Grace
Rabbit Angstrom's repeated experiences of grace are at the
core of his fleeing and searching. Grace, in Christianity, is the
sinner's experience of God's love, which is necessary for
salvation. In the Bible, the New Testament Book of Titus
explains the function of grace: "The grace of God has
appeared for the salvation of all men, training us to renounce
irreligion and worldly passions, and to live sober, upright, and
godly lives in this world."
Danish Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, whose
influence on Updike's thought is evident throughout the text,
explains grace as a necessary prerequisite to faith. According
to Kierkegaard, "If one's will or ego rejects the experience of
grace, faith will not arise." Rabbit experiences grace's
signature transformation of the mundane into the
extraordinary, again and again. However Rabbit commits the
error Kierkegaard describes. He misinterprets the source and
nature of these experiences, not coming from him but offering
the promise to him, and so fails to be transformed positively.
By its nature grace is a compelling and positive experience,
and Rabbit's primary experiences of grace have been on the
basketball court. In Section 1 Rabbit recalls how the game
propelled him into a "calm flat world where nothing matters
much." The rest of the world, as well as his anxieties and all
sense of struggle, faded away. Simultaneously his perception
of the ball and the net, and his engagement with the game,
sharpened drastically. Rabbit has also experienced grace in his
relationship with Janice. In Section 1 he recalls how, shortly
after their marriage, he went into the bathroom "expecting
nothing" but instead found Janice naked after her shower,
affectionate, relaxed, and amorous. Later in the same section
Rabbit remembers this experience yet again and asks himself,
"What gladness had seized her, and then him, unasked?"
Rabbit does not see both as experiences of divine grace
transforming human life if it is opened to it.
In Section 5, on the way to the golf course Rabbit explains to
Eccles he left Janice because "there was this thing that wasn't
there." He has a sense Eccles, as a clergyman, should be able
to identify and guide Rabbit regarding "this thing," but Eccles
has only questions for Rabbit: "What thing? Have you ever
seen it? Are you sure it exists?" Eccles and Rabbit are
speaking of grace, although neither knows it nor refers to it by
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
name. Eccles tries to use his clerical authority to undermine
Rabbit's claim, but Rabbit is undeterred; Eccles's words cannot
shake him from the convictions of his experience. When Rabbit
notes Eccles is clearly uncertain whether the thing exists, but
he, Rabbit, is sure, Eccles's questioning turns mocking: "Is it
blue? Is it red? Does it have polka dots?" Rabbit soon realizes
the man he hoped would guide him wants and needs to be
guided by him. Moments later Rabbit demonstrates grace in his
final victorious hole-in-one. "That's it!" he cries out ironically,
given what the men have been discussing.
Eccles senses something fundamental to Rabbit's problems,
which is expressed in his sometimes-graceful, sometimes-
awful performance at golf. But because of his own inability to
recognize grace and his lack of faith, Eccles is unable to guide
Rabbit towards recognizing these experiences as God's gifts
and unable to help Rabbit use them to build his faith. Instead
Eccles convinces himself he needs to beat Rabbit at golf. He
also gives Rabbit exaggerated praise. In Section 6 Rabbit
repeats to Ruth what Eccles told him: "I'm a mystic. I give
people faith." Rabbit takes this praise to heart, even though
he's not sure whether it was meant sarcastically. Eccles has a
desire to "solve" the mystery by winning a game, and his failure
as a spiritual guide lifts Rabbit's ego to new heights.
As a result of Eccles's incompetence, Rabbit stops seeking
guidance altogether. He believes he himself is the source of his
experiences of grace and has extraordinary powers that give
him the authority to guide himself and others. His attempt to
produce such an experience by using his own will fails when he
orders Ruth to follow him up the mountain and at the top waits
for the true reality hidden within the world of appearance to
show itself. Unable to will grace, Rabbit becomes depressed
and scared. Immediately after his daughter's death, he is
overcome with anxiety and fear and an almost unbearable
sense of guilt. However, his egoic belief in his own divinity
rebounds when he experiences a joyful catharsis during his
daughter's funeral. As Eccles reads from the Bible, Rabbit has
a visceral experience of the text's meaning, which leaves him
feeling cleansed of guilt and with a profound sense of peace
and the certainty his daughter has gone to Heaven. By the time
Rebecca June is buried, he "feels full of strength ... as if he has
been crawling in a cave and now ... has seen a patch of light."
But this is no authentic revelation, for in a moment all his peace
is undone when he looks at his wife's grief-filled face, which
suggests all guilt and sorrow have not, in fact, been resolved.
Rabbit's response is a hate-filled and dramatic rejection of all
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Themes 40
that does not feed his egoic spiritual delusions. He runs up the
mountain, then runs to Ruth's, and then runs from Ruth, in the
belief that only his own self is real: "Goodness lies inside, there
is nothing outside," he thinks, and "feels his inside as very real
suddenly." Thus Updike illustrates the way the religious impulse
and the experience of grace can, without the guidance of a
worthy mentor or tradition, be perverted by egoism. He
suggests the increasing secularization of American society,
signified by Eccles's atheism, tends to breed this outcome.
Instead of leading to humility and faith, the experience of grace
can, paradoxically, strengthen an individual's worst qualities.
Love and Sex
For Rabbit, the word love means sex. Rabbit repeatedly uses
this loaded term to refer to his physical need for sexual
release. It carries with it his expectation it is the duty of the
female he "loves" to provide him with the means to do
so—regardless of her feelings. Entering Ruth's apartment for
the first time, Rabbit squeezes Ruth so hard she struggles to
free herself and then tells him to get out of her house. "I've
been loving you so much all night," Rabbit pleads, explaining, "I
had to get it outta my system" (Section 4). Rabbit's "love" is
mere lust. He "loves" Ruth as a sexual object, not as a partner
or even as a person worthy of respect.
The most frank description of Rabbit's symbolic substitution of
sex for love appears in Section 10, when he sexually violates
Janice shortly after she has given birth. "I thought you might
love me anyway," he tells her, meaning he hoped she would
have sex with him despite the doctor's prohibition against
sexual activity until her body has healed. Janice's response, "I
do love you," means she cares for Rabbit and is dedicated to
him, not that she consents to sex. She uses the word in a
completely different sense from Rabbit's meaning.
He tells her to "hold still" and begins to have sex with her,
despite her clear objections and the potential threat to her
physical health. When she remarks she feels "horrible" and
used, Rabbit becomes angry. He thinks Janice "has gotten an
unreal idea of ... love" as something "rare and precious she's
entitled to half of when all he wants is to get rid of it." He is
angry she doesn't understand her duty as the one he "loves" is
to submit gratefully at all times to his sexual demands.
Rabbit, Run Study Guide
Because Rabbit can "love" any woman at any time, his
commitment to his wife depends on her fulfilling this duty: "It's
for her sake," he thinks.
The disagreement between Rabbit and Janice about
something as fundamental as the meaning of love signals a
serious flaw in their relationship, one that will soon have tragic
consequences. Janice expects love comes with empathy: "Why
can't you try to imagine how I feel?" she asks after the rape is
over. "I can but I don't want to, it's not the thing, the thing is
how I feel," Rabbit tells her coldly before leaving. Janice's
despair over this experience of Rabbit's "love" leads her to get
drunk, and the following morning she accidentally drowns the
baby.
Significant Names
In Rabbit, Run, the names of people and places often point to
defining aspects of those people and places. Because names
are stable entities, the implication is that the nature of people
and places remains stable, despite external influences that
suggest the possibility of change or growth.
The clearest example is the name John Updike gives to his
protagonist, Rabbit Angstrom. Rabbit's identity is grounded in
his past experience as a local basketball star, and although
years have passed since then, he retains the nickname
"Rabbit" that his teammates gave him. He resembles a rabbit in
his instinctual swiftness on the basketball court, and also
possesses a rabbit's large feet and buck teeth, as well as
sexual energies.
His last name, "Angstrom," contains the German word "angst,"
which means "anxiety." All of Rabbit's life decisions arise out of
his attempts to reduce his anxiety. A rabbit is an animal of prey;
its response to fear and danger is to run. In nature, the rabbit
has a chance of escaping its predator, but a captive rabbit
cannot escape its enclosure, no matter how many times it runs
frantically around the perimeter. Similarly, Rabbit Angstrom's
instinctive attempts to escape his angst are futile, because the
enclosure which traps him exists all around him as well as
inside him.
Rabbit's basketball coach, Marty Tothero, has a last name
consisting of the words "tot" and "hero." "Tot" refers to a young
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Suggested Reading 41
child. Tothero's choice of coaching as a profession is a way to
cover up his self-hatred and convince himself that he has the
wisdom and understanding to guide others to excellence. He
wants to be regarded by others as a hero. But as his name
suggests, Tothero is not a real hero. Rather, he behaves like a
lecherous and incoherent windbag who can only seem like a
hero to "tots," to those whose youth means they lack the
discernment to see Tothero for what he really is.
The narrative takes place in the vicinity of a mountain, Mt.
Judge, which is also the name of Rabbit's hometown. As Rabbit
reads a map in Section 1, he notes the variety of suggestive
place names, like "Bird in Hand, Paradise, Intercourse," which
seem funny to him. He tells himself these names are only funny
to him as an outsider: "Like Mt. Judge; you get used. A town
has to be called something." However, Mt. Judge is the location
where the characters make crucial judgments of one another
which drive the plot. Standing with his and Janice's family by
his daughter's grave in the Mt. Judge cemetery, Rabbit tells
them that he has judged Janice to be solely responsible for his
daughter's death, and encourages the Springers and the
Angstroms to join him in this judgment. The face of his mother
reveals that she has, for the first time in his life, judged her
son's character negatively. Unable to withstand the "injustice"
of this judgment against him, Rabbit turns and flees.
e Suggested Reading
Brenner, Gerry. "Rabbit, Run: John Updike's Criticism of the
'Return to Nature.'" Twentieth Century Literature, vol. 12, no. 1,
1966, p. 3.
Burhans, Clinton S., Jr. "Things Falling Apart: Structure and
Theme in Rabbit, Run." Studies in the Novel, vol. 5, no. 3, Fall
1973, pp. 336–51.
De Bellis, Jack. The John Updike Encyclopedia. Greenwood,
2000.
Newman, Judie. "The World of Work: Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux
and Rabbit Is Rich." John Updike, Palgrave, 1988, pp. 32–78.
Schiff, James. John Updike Revisited. Twayne, 1998.
Trachtenberg, Stanley. New Essays on Rabbit, Run. Cambridge
UP, 1993.