The Death Consciousness And Its Modern Significance In John Updike's"rabbit Tetralogy"

As one of the most effective writers in the modern times in America , John Updike gave his work the true and profound appeal with the painstaking observation to the life and the original analyses to the social situation. His masterpiece"Rabbit tetralogy"included《Rabbit, Run》(1960),《Rabbit Redux》(1970),《Rabbit Is Rich》(1981),《Rabbit at Rest》(1990). In tetralogy, Updike depicted Harry Angstrom's life course from 26 to 55, Unfloded the half century's life change of America systematically and comprehensively.We can see that, death narrative ran through the tetralogy. Studying the death consciousness of the tetralogy can help us to comprehend the connotation of the work deeply, grasp the implication as a whole, then we can comprehend the American society and American culture in the latter half of the 20th century better. In the research data we can find, there's no systematic study about Updike's novels'death consciousness in China. Basing on death narrative, this paper will analyse the concrete connotation of the author's death consciousness, and dig the modern significance of his death writing.This paper is divided into three chapter. In the first chapter, I discuss the origin of death consciousness from the influence of the reality environment, Karl Barth's theological ideas and Soren Kierkegaard's existential philosophy; In the second chapter ,I will analyse the death narrative of tetralogy. The critical character died in every novel, and every character's death in this article had special meanings. From the characters created by the author ,we comprehend the American's survival circumstances, feel the aesthetic experience of the social tragedy, then to seek the death consciousness of the author's deep soul. In the last chapter, I discuss the modern significance of the death consciousness. The attention to the death revealed the author's deep concern to the modern people's existing fate. Updike wrote the death ,in order to display the intrinsic value of life, call on the good human feelings and human nature, explore the existence significance of human.