A Postmodern Reading ofJohn Updike’s Rabbit at Rest

Abstract

John Updike’sRabbit at Restraises thepostmodern issues like subversion of narration, celebration of fragmentation, pastiche, dissemination and so on. The novel depicts thecondition of American people in the later phase ofthetwentieth century as symbolizedby Harry ‘Rabbit’Angstrom. Rabbit, inhis mid50s, is living in Condo Florida. His son Nelson, wife Janice, and children come to staywith himand disaster unfolds as Rabbit has a serious heart attack and it is discovered that Nelson has been embezzling to feed this cocaine habit. The novel presents the contemporary issues of 1980s like sexually-obsessed thoughts, the confinement of marriage, the realities of marital obsessed Americans, family disintegration, sexually transmitted diseases, drug addictionsand so on. These issues themselves become the determining factors of postmodern novel. This thesis examines how Updike’s America is moving forward in the course of time along with all these societal problems.