The Dilemma Of Existence And Consumer Culture In Rabbit At Rest

John Updike’s "Rabbit" series has been always the focus of the circle of American literary study. They chronicle the life of American middle-class, which truly reproduce the life and living state of American middle class over the course of several decades and serves as an encyclopedia embracing a great number of social, cultural and historical aspects of modern America. This thesis will focus on the fourth novel and the most representative one in "Rabbit Series", Rabbit at Rest. Through analyzing the characters’fear of death, their addiction problem and identity confusion, it will explore American’s living condition under the social background of consumer culture in 1980s.This thesis is divided into three chapters for a systematic analysis of people’s existence dilemma under the influence of consumer culture from three different perspectives. Chapter one mainly discusses character’s death-consciousness and its relationship with consumer culture and further reveals the great influence of consumer culture on people’s attitude towards death. Chapter two focuses on the addiction narratives in the novel and its cultural connotation:consumer culture’s great influence upon people’s daily life, their mental state and living state. Chapter three concentrates on character’s identity confusion and further analyzes the main reason behind it:the cultural contradiction in American society dominated by consumer culture.In conclusion, this thesis focuses on exploring the indispensable relationship between people’s existence dilemma and consumer culture from the perspective of socio-cultural study, and further reveals that under the appearance of material abundance and economic prosperity in contemporary American society dominated by consumer culture, American experienced an unprecedented existence dilemma caused by the lack of traditional social value, faith crisis, identity crisis and the inner emptiness, spiritual loneliness and the sense of alienation. Under this circumstance, they turned to outside influences, like cocaine, junk food to ease their fear and fill their inner emptiness. In a word, this thesis investigates the existence dilemma and mental state of American in 1980s and links them to consumerism in contemporary American culture.