“You do things and do things, and nobody really has a clue.”
About the Author
John Updike
John Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, United States, on March 18, 1932. His series of work
named Rabbit series gained him fame and Pulitzer Prize too. The works like Rabbit, Run; Rabbit is Rich;
Rabbit at rest showcases his commendable craftsmanship and prolific writing skills. Apart from these, he
wrote many short stories, poetries, and children’s books based on the theme of sex, faith, and death,
etc. Later at the age of 76, he lost his life due to lung cancer.
About the Novel
Rabbit, Run is the book that made John Updike, a major American novelists. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit”
Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is
twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society,
sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and divine Grace.
Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path,
an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler’s edge.
Genre:
Horror, realism, and mystery
Tone
Sympathy and honesty
Type
Fictional novel
Year of publication
1960
Famous Quotes
● If you have the guts to be yourself, other people will pay your price.
● Everyone who tells you how to act has whiskey on their breath.
● There is this quality, in things, of the right way seems wrong at first.
● Laws aren’t ghosts in this country; they walk around with the smell of earth on them.
● Sun and moon, sun and moon, time goes.
● The youth is deaf. The youth is careless.
Major themes of the novel
Reproduction
The novel centralizes the theme of giving birth to young ones. The involvement of marriage, sex, Fearprostitution, etc. proves it.
The protagonist rabbit named Harry “Rabbit” fears being trapped in the web or net. The fear seemingly
forges him to run around, stand still, and return.
Other major themes include:
The blame game, Drug addiction, Identity crisis, and Matter of religion