However, Rabbit's life is not all that it appears on the surface, as Updike hastens to demonstrate. The novel's in truth timeline helps emphasize this fact, as the events take place in 1979 when the get together States is in the midst of a gas crisis. Certainly, Updike wishes his readers to see the pair between the state of the nation and Harry's own life, as both(prenominal) are experiencing shortages of fuel. Harry may be living the 'good life,' sole(prenominal) it no longer seems to satisfy him. Indeed, even while play golf at the club, he feels an emptiness at the essence of things. Harry explains that he "ais tireda of summer, of golf, of the sun. When he was younger and just pickings up the game a t here(predicate) were shots that seemed like a miraclea" but now it has become "amore like turn, pleasant work but work, a matter of approximations in the realm of the imperfecta" (Updike 197-98). However, this is only when a symptom of deeper unrest within Harry's soul, as Updike understandably asserts.
Indeed, the reappearance of Harry's son Nelson seems to send him into a tailspin. Nelson returns home with a pregnant girlfriend, Pru, who he plans to marry. When Harry learns of the news, "Sorrow for the child [Nelson] bleeds upward to the ceiling with its blotches of streetlight shuffling through the
Clearly, Harry is not fulfilled within his marriage, as his thoughts of Ruth and both his and Janice's participation in the wife-swapping on the Caribbean send demonstrate, and he is also worried about the state of his son's life. Harry seems to contemplate the dead and God quite often, which seems to speak to the gloominess within him.
Rabbit muses: "The dead, Jesus. They were multiplying, and they look up begging you to gist them, promising it is all right, it is very soft down here" (Updike 13). These certainly seem to be the thoughts of a depressed individual. Indeed, at the novel's conclusion, when his grand young lady has been born, Harry's life is still in turmoil. He can only feel time dwindling down; as he cradles the baby in his arms, Rabbit feels her as simply "His. another(prenominal) nail in his coffin. His" (Updike 508).
beech" (Updike 206). It is almost too much(prenominal) for him to bear, yet Updike further complicates Rabbit's situation by torturing him with memories of his ex-lover, Ruth, and the daughter he may have possibly had with her. Indeed, when a girl comes into his dealership that resembles Ruth and possibly his daughter, Harry is completely unsettled. later on talking with the girl, "And your mother's name is Ruth? Harry wants to ask, but doesn't, lest he frighte
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