Religion in Rabbit Run

Religion, like many other things for Rabbit, seems to be a matter of convenience. He is no devout Christian, despite his close relationship with Eccles, and seems to view the spectacle of religion with a sense of satisfaction, but avoids any real spiritual exploration. Rabbit’s view of God fluctuates between atheism and Christianity, sometimes believing “there is no God” (170) while other times fervently praying for guidance, “help me, Christ. Forgive me. Take me down the way” (78). Early in his departure from his family, Rabbit is appalled at Ruth’s atheism, that she “don’t believe in anything” (79). She has seen the hypocrisy in many Christians, referring to a customer who had woken her up early in the morning “because he had to teach Sunday school at nine-thirty” (79).
Rabbit, on the other hand, does not think that far into the constructs of the church, but remains on the surface level of the spectacle of religion, pleased and reassured “by the thought of these people having the bold idea of leaving their homes to come here and pray” (78). The performance part of religion is what most deeply affects Rabbit, the visual “beauty of belief” (202) that he relishes in when he attends church after the birth of his daughter. He “has no taste for the dark, tangled, visceral aspect of Christianity, the going through quality of it, the passage into death and suffering that redeems and inverts these things…” (203). Rabbit is not interested in the rules and consequences and constraints that come with religion, only the grace and forgiveness. As in many aspects of his life, Rabbit wants to have his proverbial cake, and eat it too.
After the death of his daughter, though, Rabbit seems to consider more deeply the nature and power of God, in a more real context. The realization that an all-powerful, all-loving Christian God could have intervened and saved his daughter from drowning, “yet in all His strength…did nothing” (237), is a difficult thing for Rabbit to reconcile. With the death of Rebecca, Rabbit effectively loses his religion (or whatever he had of it). He tries praying “to relax him but it doesn’t do it…there’s no connection” (238). Rabbit’s belief in God and Christianity had stemmed from his detached enjoyment he felt in the pleasant pageantry of church services and religious social gatherings, but lacked real faith and conviction. When faced with a true theological crisis, Rabbit’s façade of religious belief crumbles into anger toward “a terrible God” (256).

Rabbit Run

What’s interesting about the form of the novel is the way Updike’s narrator tells the story, utilizing the present tense and long, sensually descriptive passages. Though he injects no blatant commentary into the novel, the narrator, in some of his language, appears to be chastising Rabbit, shaking his head as he runs off again. The present tense suits Rabbit perfectly, the plot moving forward as instantaneously and suddenly as he does, no time for reflection or self-evaluation, just a stream of cause and effect. He rarely contemplates his actions in relationship to anyone but himself, often only expressing a detached interest in uncovering his own motivations for acting, rather than the implications of those actions on others. Rabbit’s conclusions about his life are almost entirely affected by his immediate surroundings, allowing him to swing wildly from thoughts like, “There is no God; Janice can die” (170) to praying to, “make it be alright” (199). Rabbit, though capable of empathy, tends to block out everything but his own overpowering emotional swings, which makes his decisions unpredictable. As he tells his wife when she asks him to empathize with her after childbirth, “ ‘I can. I can but I don’t want to, it’s not the thing, the thing is how I feel. And I feel like getting out.” (213).

Rabbit Angstrom

Harry Rabbit Angstrom is selfish. He is self-obsessed, self-absorbed, egotistical, illogical, insensitive, and governed almost entirely by his emotional and sensual reactions. One might say he is an every-man, of sorts. Inescapably human, emphatically flawed. Confused, overwhelmed, agnostic. He struggles against the weight of life, against consequences and the big picture, against the long term.
One is thrown into this perspective at the start of Rabbit, Run, Harry already fleeing, “his acts tak[ing] on decisive haste” (21) as he leaves his wife son on a whim and drives out of Mt. Judge. Rabbit wastes no time in solidifying his outlook, revealing the thought process which will guide his actions throughout the novel to the farmer at the gas station (“ ‘the only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure out where you’re going before you go there.’ Rabbit catches a whiff of whiskey. He says in a level way, ‘I don’t think so.’” 26). This somewhat existentialist approach to decision-making places Rabbit in constant opposition with the settled, methodical routines of his family and community in Mt. Judge. Rabbit “lived in his skin and didn’t give a thought to the consequences of anything” (128). His casual treatment of sex, marriage, children, divorce, and infidelity all have lasting effects, mostly negative, on the people surrounding him, those left to bear the responsibility he abandons. Rabbit only experiences guilt and remorse in concentrated doses, shedding them as his immediate surroundings change. He claims to be certain only of himself (“all I know is what’s inside me. That’s all I have.” 93), yet even that certitude is transient, changing to reflect his environment, his level of comfort and removal from responsibility. Rabbit can say, without any guilt, and in fact, with a degree of satisfaction, that, “if you have the guts to be yourself…other people’ll pay your price” (129).

Rabbit Run