Moral Dilemma in the Novels
of John Updike
Dr. Sumbul, Assistant
Professor, Department of
English, Delhi University
Updike was a writer both evident
and abashed in his willingness to engage God as a narrative
presence in the midst of contemporary despair. Updike’s faith is Christian
but it is the one to which many assumptions about the
Christian perspective do not apply, especially those which
link Christian faith with an absolute and divinely ordered
morality. Critics continue to interpret his work according
to theories, religo-ethical system and ontology he
categorically rejects, and his fiction does not embody. The
novels of John Updike spawned a criticism rather remarkable
in its contentiousness. His books have evoked critical
outrage, bewilderment, condescension, commendation and an
enthusiasm approaching the fulsome. In case of Updike there
is truculent diversity in opinions of readers. Same novel
might me hailed as an achievement and at the same time is
dismissed as being self-indulgent.
Updike’s major themes have
always been about American society, its people, their
beliefs and their dilemmas. American dilemma is a crisis of
moral ambivalence. It pervades all dimensions of America's
social, economic, political, educational and religious
institutions – moral ambiguity cannot be wholly erased but
demands a cure if its society is to continue to exist.
Updike’s quicksilver intellect
made him for decades one of the foremost literary figures in
America. Few writers have shown such elegant lexical rouge
and beauty on the page.
Mostly Updike’s novels start with
the discussion of faith, establishing the fact that faith is
an important theme in Updike’s fiction. He stresses the fact
that faith is quintessential for life because it acts as a
support system for mankind. Much attention is given to the
role of church and its ministers in Updike’s fiction. He has
examined old way of faith versus modern way of science and
this is achieved without establishing either a hero or an
antihero. Moral concerns figure heavily in Updike’s
treatment of family relationships, love relationships and
business dealings in America. Updike has a real concern for
religion and only in Updike you can get dose of both
religion and literature.
The pervasive religious
atmosphere in Updike’s writing necessitates examination of
influence of Karl Barth, Soren Kierkegaard and Paul Tillich.
Updike himself has admitted that he was influenced by Karl
Barth.
Karl Barth is expanding
Kierkegaard’s sounding of the theme that the churches must
reform and turn back again to the biblical revelation. Their
cry sounds more like Luther’s call for sola scriptura.
Updike through his novels and characters tries
to talk about the Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy. In
other words he talks about meaninglessness of life or
nihilism. Life of Updike’s characters is based on this kind
of Absurd philosophy. They feel trapped. They find
themselves in a cage from where there is no way out. They
suffer from guilt because of their mistakes and sins.
Characters experience horrors of technology-mad apocalyptic
world. They feel they are in an alien world.
After reading Updike’s novels with
faith as a thematic underpinning, it is evident that to
Updike, faith is the foundation upon which religion and
domestic life rests. Updike realistically “describes a
fallen world seldom aided by the Bible or clergy” (Bellis
275). He explores the vacuum left by dwindling faith
that once acted as an integrative force for the society. At
the same time, the difficulty of holding onto faith suffuses
his books. Faith works at individual as well as social
level. In form of social institutions faith demands from an
individual a level of selflessness and a sense of
responsibility.
Faith
sometimes causes moral dilemma between individual thinking
and desires and social demands. “. . . Updike is
concerned with human needs vs. society’s demands” (Gingher
101). The fictive world of Updike is peopled with the
characters struggling to climb up the social ladder, carry
out the family obligation on one hand and living with throes
of the search for meaning and God at the same time, on the
other. Updike successfully illustrates the
introspective struggles of his protagonists. He is concerned
with the stuffiness, disillusionment and ambivalence
pervasive in America. The characters are representative of
Americans. Boswell
says that, “. . . the true American hero is the average
citizen, in isolation, shut up in the solitude of his/her
own heart. This, for Updike, is the essence of the
democratic hero, as opposed to the traditional hero of
aristocratic societies. . . . The individual in
contemplation of himself: that is the heart of Updike’s
American ideal” (Boswell 235).
Faith as a force works at
individual as well as social level. Socially, institutions
play crucial role en route faith, marriage and church being
two powerful institutions that makes an attempt to maintain
order, however skewed it may be. An individual may turn his
back on or fight against the institutions with a variety of
intentions. A social or religious rebel may be guided or
misguided by rational, independent thinking as it may happen
when science is pitted against religion or s/he may be
guided by one’s selfish hedonistic pursuits when s/he may
shirk social responsibilities. Examples of the first case
are Clarence of In
the Beauty of the Lilies and Sarah P. Worth of S, while Tom
Marshfield of A Month
of Sundays and Rabbit Angstrom of Rabbit Tetralogy
are examples of the second variety.
Through the lives of Updike’s
characters it is evidenced that life seems absurd when we
face moral dilemmas. Faith alleviates absurdity. Sometimes
the reason for the loss of faith, as mentioned earlier, is
scientific reading and sometimes the reason is to get rid of
insipid life or a conscious refusal to lead a disappointed
life. Characters go on a quest. Updike places his
protagonists within a predicament that instigate them to
respond in a variety of ways.
Updike’s
fiction provides a detailed study of our bodies and the
world in which we live, his prose illustrating and
celebrating the intricacies of our existence. “What matters
. . . is a recognition of what Updike’s work, taken as a
whole, comes to – namely “the unfolding of a self, over, a
career of books. Moreover . . . the unfolding of that self
has been also the unfolding of a society and a nation . . .”
(Pinsker 333). Updike’s characters are
solipsistic. They are found locked up in their solitude.
Religious or
irreligious
ambience permeates throughout his novels. For Updike,
fiction and theology are not separate. Updike says, “I think
that theology is very much a part of our fictional fabric.
It’s very hard to write fiction without having some sort of
religious sense. . . . We all have some religious need . .
.” (Bailey 65). In Updike’s novels, religion is often
exposed as insufficient to meet the demands of an individual
in the present sterile society. In the absence of social and
religious inhibitions, sexual promiscuity becomes a part of
self-revelation, a substitute for God. The modern world as
Updike sees it is superfluous, but not a world of
fulfillment.
In his
novels, God is not present in the day today life. God is not
on the same plane as humans but He is on an entirely
different plane.
“Updike's
focus on the complex implications of his characters' moral
decisions is constant and sharp, so that the issues are
always clear and the consequences of each decision fully
developed. But while Updike's characters are quick to judge
each other, their creator refuses either to bless or to
condemn; and each novel clearly demonstrates that the
specific moral problem it treats is irresolvable. The world
Updike creates in his fiction is morally ambiguous.”
(Schopen 526)
The
characters may have judgmental attitude towards each other
and even the consequences of their actions affect them, but
as an author Updike neither rewards nor punishes his
characters. “Updike, however, believes that there are no
solutions. And he specifically rejects the notion that
literature should inculcate moral principles or precepts”
(Schopen 526). His emphasis is on the unresolved
tension which is the mark of American fiction.
“Updike does
send his protagonists . . . on quests, presumably for
identity, for a means to square themselves with the
enigmatic universe. He confronts them with all the
temptations both of flesh and spirit which the questing hero
must face, with all the problems and the myriad solutions to
them. But he is only nominally concerned with bringing his
protagonists through successfully – or even unsuccessfully.
His real concern is a critical examination of the
temptations, the problems, the questions, and the answers as
they conflict both inside and outside the protagonist,
alternately promising and denying solutions to the quest.”
(Waldmeir 16)
The tinge of existential gloom
pervades the novels and despite the characters’ acceptance
of the inherent ambiguity of human existence, they are
willing to seek sexual adventure in order to overcome
feeling of ennui and tedium of the predictable. Updike is acclaimed as an
unfashionably Christian novelist, but Updike is a pagan
celebrant too. His impulse is mystically broad rather than
theologically exact.
The view of
life which is fostered by the new ideas proves catastrophic
for the society in general and the institution of religion
and marriage in particular.
In his fiction “. . . the “upright life” of a
faithful marriage and righteousness per se are
threatened by instinctual desires” (Gingher 101). There is a
moral and spiritual vacuum in contemporary American life and
therefore the characters grope for religious experience.
“Updike offers an unconventional description of how the
movies have replaced the churches as respites for spiritual
renewal by describing how films appeal the characters in his
fiction and the people worldwide. Movies have been seen as
substitute for religiosity by the protagonists in the novel
In the Beauty of the
Lilies. “The novel [In the Beauty of the
Lilies] is important for its direct treatment of the
problem of spiritual disillusionment, something Updike’s
other ministers had suffered and for its demonstrated
connection between the religious impulse and the attraction
of the movies” (Bellis 219).
Through his
novels, Updike maintains that;
“But all
church services have this wonderful element: People with
other things to do get up on a Sunday morning, put on good
clothes and assemble out of nothing but faith. . . . Simply
as a human gathering I find it moving, reassuring and even
inspiring. A church is a little like a novel in that both
are saying there’s something very important about being
human.” (Samuels 182)
Updike’s novels do not only talk
about churches but says enough for love and faith. We find
that “. . .
Updike's heroes often discover that intimacy involves
disappointment, that love is itself transitory, and that the
search for permanence may hinder life” (Samuels 9). He scrutinizes moral dilemmas. Updike
has “. . . filled his fiction with characters who struggle
in one way or another with belief and has offered their
stories to the postmodern world as both representatives of
that world and as signs of hope for it. His fictional
characters are also figures searching for the validation
that love, exercised in freedom, offers” (Coates 239). For
Updike, both these qualities are essential for living life
with goodness but unfortunately both these qualities of
faith and love are not sufficiently found in the lives of
Americans. “Lacking the support of faith, Updike's modern
heroes can neither accept man's contingency nor find
permanence through the world” (Samuels 27). Updike’s fiction
is rooted in the ethos of contemporary America. “In tracing
Updike’s moral and theological debates, four interconnected
principles have emerged as constants throughout his work.
For Updike: accurate presentation of Reality is essential;
Faith, though problematic, is essential; Love, as both ideal
and experience, is essential; Goodness is possible” (Coates
240).
Updike’s novels “deal with the
problem of faith and the difficulty of moral decisions;
dramatize a moral dilemma of the characters.” (Schopen531). Through his fiction John
Updike depicts that the increasing domination of the
physical world in our lives, have shifted our attention from
those spiritual ideals with which religion is concerned. And it has dashed all moral
values and created a world bereft of absolutes, a world of
religious uncertainty spiritual restlessness and historical discontinuity.
There was discontent with traditional
theism and theological context was shaping both the period
and its fiction. Be it literary, theological, personal,
social, Lutheran, Christian and American. These
religiosities will be disguised or made explicit in the
multitude of his literary works, fictional and
non-fictional, realistic and mythic, satirical and
laudatory. The works, in their varieties, interests and
expositions have become spoken witnesses of Updike’s
visualizing of American literature with his theological and
literary artistry because of the theological concerns they
express. The larger theme uniting these readings is the
quest for a salvific vision in the secular world. Faith is
the only solitary thing that can combat fear of nothingness.
Tracing Updike moral
theological debates it can be observed that Updike employs
various definitions of goodness through his continuing
attempts at raising moral questions. The issues that he
examines are complex enough that he does not settle for a
monolithic approach. Rather he analyses the subject of
goodness from numerous angles though always with a
background of theological belief. Updike focused on
spiritual no less than carnal. In investigating major
aspects of American life community involvement, political
and moral beliefs, personal relationships, and work time and
again systematic analysis led to the one factor that
consistently and dramatically affects the values and
behavior of Americans. This factor is level of religious
commitment. Americans are now cultivating highly personal
forms of worship which observers call pastiche spirituality
or religion a la carte, it involves combing various beliefs
and practices from various sources or even becoming a member
of two or more distinct religions at the same time.
Updike underwent the angst of
spiritual crisis and therefore he has been able to aptly present it. He asserts that he constructs
his novels to frame a moral dilemma. In a 1993 interview he
said he had never been an unbeliever.
“Somehow it struck me quite early that the
church whatever its faults, was speaking to the real issues
and that without the church I didn’t feel that anybody would
speak to the real issues that is the issue of being human
being alive. I have remained loyal to the church. Spires you
see in a small town or a city do bring hope and hope brings
energy. It’s certainly bought me energy.” (Nunley 259)
And there is no question that
for Updike the problems of human morality are subordinate to
that of faith. The problem of faith, though difficult, is
simple and absolute; those of morality are relative,
ambiguous, and "basically insoluble." Thus, insofar as it
treats moral problems, Updike's fiction must be ambiguous
and essentially static.
Updike has said that the
central theme of each of his novels is meant to be a moral
dilemma. But to develop a moral theme in such a way that
there is no resolution is to do something quite different
from what the novel has traditionally attempted.
Many of Updike's readers find
the moral ambiguity of his fictional world morally
offensive. His refusal to establish a rigid and clearly
discernible moral perspective from which his characters
should be viewed often leads these readers to assert that
Updike is unwilling or unable to deal with serious moral
issues, that he has "nothing to say." The objective
presentation of life's pervasive ambiguity also leads many
of his sympathetic critics to misread him; they simply
assume that Updike shares their own moral attitudes or those
associated with Christianity in general, and interpret his
fiction accordingly.
Updike has described the
vision of human existence which informs them:
“My books feed, I suppose, on
some kind of perverse relish in the fact that there are
insolvable problems. There is no reconcilia- tion between
the inner, intimate appetites and the external con-
solations of life .... There is no way to reconcile these
indi- vidual wants to the very real need of any society to
set strict limits and to confine its members. Rabbit, Run
... I wrote just to say there is no solution. It is a novel
about the bouncing, the oscillating back and forth between
these two kinds of urgencies until, eventually, one just
gets tired and wears out and dies, and that's the end of the
problem.” (Nunley 19)
Actually, the severing of the
ethical from the religious had taken place in Updike's
fiction before the publication of The Centaur. Updike's
more recent novels continue the patterns established in Rabbit Run. The world of John Updike's Rabbit Run is a
collection of polarities that dramatizes the in-between-ness and the constant state
of tension that characterizes humanity. A cursory perusal
of John Updike's Rabbit
Run reveals a world of hopeless futility in which
Harry Angstrom runs in ever-tightening circles. In Rabbit Run,
Rabbit is always running, from one woman to another,
between Brewer and Mt. Judge, between solitude and
society. Rabbit is torn because he has faith in something
meaningful in the world, somewhere, but he fails to find
it during any of his frequent but brief stops. More
important than the futile vacuity of Rabbit's world,
however, is the fact that he never gives up his quest. He
searches that life is not meaningless. Like it, they deal with the
problem of faith and the difficulty of moral decisions; and
they too dramatize a moral dilemma.
The actual as opposed to the metaphoric or
symbolic existence of God and eternal life is basic to his
theology. Updike is a man of faith is unquestionable and the
specifically Christian character of his belief is inherent
in his fiction. The purpose of his works is to
engage readers in a dialectical debate. Nothing is forced
upon the readers because Updike is set out to write and not
to preach. Updike’s fiction has never
aimed for moral instruction, but instead has attempted to
depict human existence as it is, refusing to simplify the
contradictions apparent in human behavior to ignore the
sordid impulses that often preoccupy our thoughts. The
characters find themselves troubled externally and
especially internally till they undergo resurgence of faith.
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