A Freudian Psychoanalytic Interpretation Of Rabbit, Run

John Updike is one of the major contemporary American writers. He has produced dozens of literary works, among which the Rabbit quartet wins many prestigious literary prizes and stands as his magnum opus. The first book, Rabbit, Run, depicts a story of a young runaway who escapes to show his great disappointment with the dull, mediocre social life and corruptive crowd, well displaying the wide- spread spiritual crisis after the Second World War. It arouses the great interest from the American literary circle, as well as Chinese readers.The writer of this thesis feels fascinated about the motivation of the hero's behaviors, and conducts the research of exploring the inner cause of his behaviors from the perspective of Freudian Psychoanalysis. This paper is composed of five parts as follows: Chapter One is Introduction which begins with the proposal of the topic that the writer of this thesis to deal with: Rabbit's shocking actions are natural outcome of the crashes of his id and his superego with external environment. Then a detailed explanation for using Freudian Psychoanalysis is offered as the theoretical approach, and lastly the overview of the previous analysis of the novel is given.Chapter Two is"The Theory of Personality Structure Related to Rabbit, Run", which conveys the basic theory of Freudian Psychoanalysis that is relevant to this thesis: the theory of personality structure. The embodiment of this theory in the novel is briefly depicted in this part.Chapter Three is"Rabbit's Personality Structure and Defense Mechanisms", which analyses Rabbit's strong id, ineffective superego and the defense mechanisms that ego adopts: the replacement and the denial.Chapter Four mainly devotes to the symbols in the novel from the perspective of Freudian psychoanalytic literary criticism, which falls into two parts: the objects and scenes,and the activities.The final chapter is the conclusion of this paper, in which the three systems of the personality structure are cross-opposing-and-restricting among one another, and the contradictory movement of them shapes people's personality and their behaviors. The three systems of the personality structure must adjust to and cooperate with one another so as to achieve a balanced mind. The ego's role of adjustment proves to be very important, when it employs defense mechanisms according to the reality and under the guidance of the superego.In addition, some of the symbols, viewed from the perspective of Freudian Psychoanalysis, convey a strong taste of unconsciousness. And all these reveal that Rabbit is actually an Everyman reacting naturally to the external environment.