| Marriage in John Updike's fiction is informed by a norm of authentic commitment. As a formulation of what constitutes the committed marital relationship, the norm provides Updike's definition of three central values. The first value, allegiance, bespeaks the exclusivity of partner's loyalty to one another. Trust, the second value, refers to each partner's dependence upon the other to act for his or her own good. Last, faith describes the act of protecting and, at the same time, bridging the discreteness of two individuals.; While the subject of marriage figures prominently in much of Updike's fiction, in five of his novels it is a central thematic concern. In particular, plot and characterization are seen to be (in part) functions of Updike's description of his character's marriages. As a result of their emphasis upon marriage, the five novels--Rabbit, Run (1960), Of the Farm (1965), Couples (1968), Rabbit Redux (1971), and Marry Me (1976)--offer the best sources of Updike's characterizations of marriage and the norm which informs his presentation of them.; Updike employs several techniques in his marriage novels to provide an evaluative characterization of a marital relationship. Among these techniques used to measure his characters' distance from or proximity to his norm of authentic commitment, the most important are dramatic irony, psychological setting, domestic imagery, romantic irony, and the perspective of children. In Rabbit, Run, Updike focuses on forms of solipsism and the effect upon marriage of a character's refusal to trust his or her partner. Of the Farm describes the stages preparatory to the actualization of authentic commitment in marriage. Depicting in Couples an attempt to revise marriage customs, Updike illustrates an experiment to restore the vitality of marriage by means of "essential" fidelity. Rabbit Redux characterizes the protagonist's search for and identification of marital values. Finally, modeling Jerry Conant after the character of Tristan in his "Four Sides of One Story," Updike examines in Marry Me the psychology of ideal love.; In these novels, Updike reveals the conflict between strategies of married life and his formulation of marriage values. I examine this conflict, its resolution in three of the novels, and the techniques which render both for the purpose of delineating Updike's norm of authentic commitment. |
