The ghosts in Updike's garden: Major motifs in the 'Rabbit' tetralogy

Updike's own approach to writing fiction, as outlined in his poem Midpoint, justifies an inductive method in the critical analysis of the Rabbit novels. This method reveals major motifs that emerge from complex patterns of figurative language. Images cluster around six major lodestars: rabbits, gardens, ghosts, eating, playing and working. Throughout the tetralogy, "rabbit" images cohere in a pointillistic picture that establishes the protagonist as a necessarily solipsistic individual, Updike's "Everyman" through which the novelist explores the subjective aspects in all creative and critical endeavor. Clusters of "garden" images encompass both ideality and the actuality of American middle-class life, providing the environment for the rabbit protagonist. The pattern of "ghost" images establishes the tetralogy's dominant mood of nostalgia resulting from the tension between ideality and actuality. The motifs that emerge from the interdependent patterns encompass both physical and spiritual dimensions of human being; the "eating/consuming" motif, for instance, emphasizes the physical and is characteristic of classic American naturalism but also moves toward the spiritual whereas the "play" motif primarily functions to express the spiritual dimension of human existence even though generated by the physical, the kinetic. The "work" motif, with its element of transaction, the give and take of bargaining, forms a pattern that parallels the dialectical quality encompassing the necessary ambiguity in the fiction. The motifs coalesce to present a central debate that continues throughout the narrative, exploring the resulting moral dilemma when the needs and desires of the individual conflict with those of society. Contributing to the debate are: the question of human limitations, both physical and spiritual, that frustrate the individual's aspirations for a Godlike existence; a concern with blood relations, privileged over all others; and the perplexing uncertainties produced by a mutable world. The complexity of the patterns of imagery that produce the motifs in the tetralogy reflects the protagonist's contemplation of the mysteries of human existence as he struggles within the confining context of his own, ordinary life.