A Study Of The Narrative Strategies In Rabbit, Run.

John Updike is recognized as one of the most prominent contemporary writers in America. As the first book of the Rabbit Tetralogy, Rabbit, Run reflects his unique writing style and fascinates so many readers. This novel depicts the protagonist Harry Angstrom, whose nickname is Rabbit, attempts to escape from the mediocre life and break away from the repression from the society and seek for the self-actualization and freedom through running away from home time and again.This thesis makes an analysis of the narrative strategies in this novel in order to find out the distinctive artistic feature and their aesthetic effect. The First Chapter mainly analyzes the internal focalization of this novel by employing the narrative focus theory put forward by Gerard Genette. Internal focalization plays an important role in characterization, which represents the struggle and contradiction in the inner heart of the protagonist Rabbit vividly and shapes the images of other characters in this novel. The narrative perspective can be regarded as a carrier of the ideology which mirrors the ideological position of the author. In addition, the interpretation of morality is expressed clearly by applying the internal focalization.The Second Chapter probes into the phenomenon of the repetition occurring in this novel, which falls into two parts: the repetition of images and the repetition of scenes. This chapter explores the artistic effect by applying the theory of repetition proposed by J. Hillis Miller. The repetition of images forms a vivid picture in the mind of readers and makes readers experience feelings of Rabbit more profoundly. The repetition of scenes unfolds a dynamic change in this novel and contributes to portraying characters and rendering the atmosphere.The Third Chapter devotes to the study of parallelism of this novel, which is a unique feature in the structure. The parallelism concludes two parts: parallelism in the whole structure; parallelism in plots and characters. The parallel structure gives this novel a beautiful rhythm. It highlights the differences between the parallel characters and unfolds the similarity of them as well.This novel unfolds a distinctive artistic feature owing to the adoption of the narrative strategies. The success of the characterization, the beauty of the narrative rhythm, the deepening of the theme derive from the employment of the narrative strategies which include the internal focalization, repetition and parallelism.