The Pleasure And Conflict In The Stream Of Desire

Updike is an American novelist, short story writer, poet, essayist, critic and writer forchildren.Throughout his writing, which is characterized by subtlety of perception and exactness ofprose,one can trace Updike’s mythic and Biblical symbolism. His allusiveness provides a kind ofsubstructure to his works in which he explores and explains human nature. He is internationally known forhis novels Rabbit, Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), Rabbit Is Rich (1981), and Rabbit at Rest (1990).They follow the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a star athlete, from his youth through the social andsexual upheavals of the1960s, to later periods of his life, and to final decline.John Updike’s novels show a man’s marriage as his fate. No one has done more to explode malefreedom and power in clusters of emotional relationships as a myth than Updike in novels of American menwhose lives, from cradle to grave, are constructed by women. His most famous novel, named Rabbit, Run,with his sharp and precise stroke, gives the most vivid expression to the male’s experiences and inner worldas a protagonist connected to the complicated web of emotional relationships centering on marriage, love,adultery. This thesis is an attempt to analyze Rabbit, Run in the light of Michel Foucault’s emotional powerrelations.This thesis is divided into seven parts. Chapter One is introduction. In this part some backgroundknowledge is provided, including the life backgrounds and experiences of the writer and his main works.Then literature review follows, including correlational studies on Rabbit, Run at home and abroad. Afterliterature review, the author proposes that though John Updike’ Rabbit, Run has been studied for a long time,many critics have mainly probed into this novel from themes no more than Restlessness in the1950s, TheReasons of the Hero’s Escape,The Americanness of Rabbit, Run, The disillusionment of AmericanDreams,The Discussions of the role of women in the1950s, as such. Based on what has been mentionedabove, it is necessary to study this masterpiece from a new angle.Chapter Two is theoretical framework which mainly focuses on Foucault’s theories concerning powerrelations, emotional relations, sexuality and the specific branches like marriage tie, adultery. By theintroduction and illumination of the above theories, the author hopes that the analysis of the novel could bedeep and sound.Chapter Three aims at the analysis of the emotional complexity, sex under the marital bond, and theprobe into emotional tension between Rabbit and his wife Janice. Futhermore, the demonstration of symbolic elements by the materials and scenes from the novel which reflect their relationsip are included.Chapter Four is intended to analyze erotics, emotional void, in short, the related emotional relationshipbetween Rabbit and Ruth, besides, from the perspective of adultery, deepening the probe into this relation.In terms of the pursuit of sexual desire, the thesis tends to compare itself with The catcher in the Rye withan aim to trace the origin of this theme.Chapter Five is concerned with the theme—The hidden emotional conflict between Janice and Ruth.This pair of relationship runs the parallel with the themes of The Care of Oneself, mainly focusing onself—control, self—deprecation,self—discard. Besides, the delicate struggle for Rabbit between twofemales is pictured and tapped in this chapter.Chapter Six focuses on Self-empowerment of Rabbit in power relationships with aim to further diginto the origin of his confusion and turmoil in his life from the extension of power relation theories.Chapter Seven is the conclusion of this thesis. The author concludes that the novel uses an ordinarylove affair for the exposure of the complicated relationships in the realm of family bound up with marriageand adultery. Under the air of the traditional triangle (two men fighting for one woman) replaced by one(two women competing for one man) created by the author, men were faced with the suffocating shackle ofsullen marriage, mired in the wasteland of spiritual world and fled aimlessly from which people’s pursuit ofdesire and pleasure are displayed by the multilayer emotional relationships.