Reading Rabbit Queer

John Updike’s writings,especially in Rabbit trilogy,present the readers with a character who takes pains to explore the dark truth of life and philosophy.This heterosexual protagonist Harry Angstrom has been scrutinized by critics over the years for the character’s eccentricity as well mediocrity.The trilogy,with each focusing on one theme(religion,politics and economy respectively),has intrigued many into studying Updike’s sophisticated thematic expression,such as the idiosyncratic Americanness,and the spirituality and materialism that American people paradoxically believe in.However,there are few studies on Updike’s writing about homosexuality,though it is generally agreed that this author has obsession with explicitly sexual depiction.This paper then firstly argues that the impulse,irresolution,procrastination and greed of the protagonist could not be well understood without taking into consideration the matter of(homo-)sexuality in such a highly patriarchal and homophobic American society from the sixties to the eighties.In addition,it holds true to the appreciation of Updike’s literariness because his Rabbit trilogy surprisingly follows the structure of traditional queer texts which have been under meticulous scrutiny by queer theory critics,even though these critics may merely want to protect him from queer readings.This thesis will undertake the queer reading on Updike’s Rabbit trilogy within the theoretical framework of Sedgwick s queer studies.It argues that John Updike’s Rabbit trilogy challenges the binarized definition of homosexuality.The trilogy is heavily concerned with gender and identity.It re-imagines the character’s desire and identity and expands its scope of investigation on the mechanism of the sex-gender system.The first chapter analyzes the homophobia of the protagonist Rabbit in Rabbit Run and offers reasons through the lens of Sedgwick’s insights on the definition of homosexuality and Butler’s elaborations on performativity.The second chapter tries to reveal the imbalanced power structure between man and woman in triangle love relationships from Rabbit Redux based on Sedgwick’s explanations on homosocial desires.With Sedgwick’s study on the epistemology of the closet and Gayle Rubin’s notes on the political economy of sex,the third chapter focuses on how the mechanisms of the closet affects the closeted protagonists in Rabbit is Rich.This thesis reveals the complicated dynamics of homosexuality,homophobia,homosociality and the closet in Updike’s trilogy.It tries to deconstruct the problematic heterosexuality of the protagonist.However,its purpose does not lie in claiming the homosexual identity of the characters,but dissecting the trilogy from the lens of homosexual thematic reading.Starting from the obvious homosexual desires of the characters,this thesis reinterprets the characters,the families and the patriarchal society with queer reading in order to dig into the complex mechanism of sex,politics and economy.Thus,it shows the life and oppression of the queer characters as well as the female characters,and reveals the hegemony of heterosexuality and the homophobic essence of the American society from the 1960s to the 1980s.As a result,the deeper implications of Updike’s literature on the mechanism of sex,power and oppression could be brought to surface.