Rabbit, Run by John Updike

Updike’s poem, “Ex-Basketball”, is a poem that remembers the heyday of Flick, while at the same time illustrating a descriptive picture for the reader. He commences with a description of a journey down a street that could represent Flick’s life; full of turns and promises but dead ends because of a lack of training. Moreover, John Updike composes this poem with figurative language, correct diction, and imagination using valuable elements to create an excellent effect on the tone and meaning of this poetic style poem. I could say that the theme of “Ex-basketball” focuses on the fact that if one does not work hard on achieving their goals, they will not succeed in reaching their dream. In fact, the outcome of not reaching your goals can lead to frustration and disappointment in life. Evidently, Flick shows a reflection of people who once were successful in sports when he was in high school, but has drastically different future than one might think.

In The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud gives a genealogical account of religion in which he describes the religious illusion being born out of mankind’s inherent state of helplessness. Religion sedates the masses through a childlike neurosis, where deity plays the role of the surrogate father, offering protection and comfort, allowing culture to maintain the status quo. However, despite the significant role of the religious illusion for both society and the individual, Freud is optimistic that it can be overcome and replaced by scientific and secular ideals. In this essay, I will give an account of Freud’s pessimism regarding the problem of religion, which is expressed through his genealogical account of religion and the concerns

Depression has the ability to control one’s behavior. In Rabbit Run, John Updike uses Janice and Rabbit to portray depression’s manipulative way of destroying a person. Through many articles, it is explained how the effects of depression cause a downwards spiral of self destruction. Many authors have explored the effects of depression and linked it alcohol abuse as well. This can be easily compared to Janice’s alcohol consumption throughout the book and how it lead her to her downfall and eventual murder of her daughter as well as Rabbit’s indecisive mind. As Rabbit runs from Janice in an attempt to chase his youth, he is just as numb as his wife. Janice drinks her pain away. However, this does not only affect Janice, but her whole family. Her kids are dragged into this situation as well. As one character struggles through depression and all that results from it, the rest of her family is dragged through it with her.

In “Hoopstars 2” Jackie Willis is the backup point guard on Angel Park Lakers even though she is better than the starting point guard Tommy Ramirez. Coach Donaldson keeps Tommy at point guard even though he keeps messing up and Jackie plays better. Jackie and her parents get mad and they think it is because Jackie is a girl. Jackie continues to be backup point guard until she challenges Tommy to a battle for the starting point guard. The coach allows it and Jackie won the battle and Tommy already knew she was better.

Watership Down by Richard Adams is a book about the survival of a very special group of rabbits on their escape from the invasion of humans and the complete loss of their home. The primary characters/rabbits in this story are Hazel, Bigwig, Pipkin, Dandelion, Speedwell, Acorn, Blackberry, Silver, Buckthorn, and Fiver. In the beginning of this book, the rabbits are put together in groups called the warren. Fiver, the smallest, youngest rabbit who is also Hazel’s younger brother, has an incredible ability. Fiver is like a prophet and has terrible visions of an upcoming danger that will come upon the warren. They report it to the Threarah, or Chief Rabbit, but he refuses to listen to their concerns. Hazel, trusting his little brother’s instincts,

Through research, you can learn that postcolonial discourse is an “academic discipline that analyzes the cultural legacies of colonialism and of imperialism.” It is made up of theories found amongst “history anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, film, political science, architecture, human geography, sociology, Marxist theory, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature.” An understanding of postcolonial discourse could be what colonized societies handed down to succeeding generations after them that has become significant to their culture.

Zachary Bell Final Essay on Religion Professor Comer 4/18/16 1. Contained within John Caputo’s book On Religion are a variety of interesting views as it pertains to modern religion, which he labels as Post-secular. The most important of these views, which constitutes a major theme in the novel, is that religion can be present with or without religion. He explains this mostly by using a question “what do I love when I love my God?” He uses this question to state that God may be the embodiment of love, however, he agrees with Augustine that when people love for things deeply, they love God unknowingly.

In a postmodern world it is worth contemplating in what we can put our faith. Does culture, religion, or God merit our trust? Or is this a world of mechanical and biological evolutionary processes void of any meaning and purpose? The Sunset Limited, “a novel in dramatic form,” by Cormac McCarthy, is a dialogue between two persons who approach each other from opposite worlds to answer these questions. Black, a born-again believer and ex-con, and White, a nihilistic college professor, attempt to determine whether belief in God is viable in this world and if life is worth living. Despite Black’s efforts to convince him otherwise, White remains a Depressed Self who denies God’s existence, affirms his view of the world as deranged, and leaves to complete his suicide.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go” and Zadie Smith the author of the novel “White Teeth” both illustrate the idea of religion how some of the character chose their religion on their own and committed to it and other characters who quit their religion. While there are characters who are not being thought about religion because there is no religion where they are living. In “Never Let Me Go” the narrator focuses on three characters, Tommy, Ruth, and the Kathy H. who is the novel’s narrator they are students at Hailsham. In the first chapter Kathy talk about her job, she work as a “career” for “donors”.

To Pray or Not to Pray: An exploration into the relationship between religion and isolation in The Stranger and Chronicle of a Death Foretold

John Updike's novel, Rabbit, Run, is about a man named Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom. Rabbit is a brainless guy whose career as a high school basketball star peaked at age 18. In his wife's view, he was, before their early, hasty marriage, already drifting downhill.

“Please God, take anything, take my life, but don’t take Yourself away from me, don’t tell me I haven’t known You at all.” What happens when science and religion clash in a fiery battle of interpretations? In Waking Life Sister John suffers an internal battle between fact and faith, and attempts to discern between a powerful religious experience and the mere side effects of an epileptic disorder. However, instead of separating the two, she mediates by allowing “science” to deny her of what she had been experiencing without giving up her faith in God. In this essay, I will take a stance that explains how science and religion dynamically work, but at the same time question why science has the power to deny religious experiences. What about science nulls these religious experiences that appear so real to the individuals that host them?

Humans have an attribute that animals do not have: free will. In our lives, we are frequently presented with many opportunities to make our own choices, but what exactly fuels and supports our decision-making? Sometimes, we act impulsively for no reason, but for the most part, we are often influenced by various outside factors, such as past experiences, religious beliefs, or peer pressure, to make our choices. Emil Sinclair, the narrator of Herman Hesse’s bildungsroman Demian, is an example of an individual who incorporates different aspects and beliefs of religion, particularly Christianity, into his life. Raised in a Christian household, Emil has always viewed religion as a big role; not only does religion influence his actions, it also

The story also tackles the issues of religion, suffering, exploitation, deliverance, and the search for meaning and purpose of existence.

Rabbit Remembered, a sequel to the rabbit series, was published in the year 2001. It is a novella and was first published in Licks of Love – a collection of short stories. This novella is published ten years after Harry’s death in Rabbit at Rest. In Rabbit Remembered, Janice, Harry’s wife, works as a real estate agent and has married Ronnie Harrison, who was Thelma’s Husband. Thelma was actually Harry’s illicit lover and she died of kidney failure and cancer in Rabbit at Rest. Harry’s son Nelson, even at the age of forty two lives in his mother’s house, but has recovered from the cocaine habit that led him to misuse tens of thousands of dollars from his parents’ Toyota business in Rabbit at Rest. Disgusted with Nelson’s unwillingness to grow