On Religious Thought Of John Updike's Rabbit Series

John Updike, as a noted writer in contemporary American literature, is well-known for his Rabbit Series. Namely, Rabbit Run in 1960, Rabbit Redux in 1970, Rabbit Is Rich in1981 and Rabbit At Rest in 1990. These four novels published every ten years reflect that Americans of the moment begin to be pessimistic and perplexed after the collapse of their spiritual support in religion. According to the detailed and factual description of Rabbit's whole life, John Updike presented us a panorama of Americans' social vicissitude and development on values.Harry, the dramatic person of this work, is an idealist in fact. He rebelled irresponsibly because of his dissatisfaction to the society without belief and his annoyance in the screwy times, and finally he came to death all at sea. On the one hand, this story represents the author's great attention to the contemporary American culture and special details of history. On the other hand, it reflects American's embarrassed state in belief and the author's bemusement in religion. Rabbit series are not only the veracious portraiture of Harry's life, but also the actual reflection of American history and society. These works also touches American's life style, religion and life in town and actually aims at showing up the religion issues of American society, such as the liberty of religion, the secularization of religion, and problems among religion and society, family, and personal responsibility, etc.This article try to discuss the source of John Updike's religious thought and latent cultural factors by studying Rabbit Harry's pursuing and losing process to religion, other key men's religion representation in works and the complexity of author's personal religion. By reading up these works, we learn that the opposite sides come to one between the religious and the unreligious and God has penetrated American's temporal life inside out. Therefore, to unite the religious and the unreligious and keep them in balance is the only solution to American's quandary in religion and their ambivalent state. About the introjections of the religious and the unreligious, John Updike gave full recognition on its value and continued his exploration, and that is exactly Rabbit Series.