When Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom returns to Brewer to seek the help of his old high school basketball coach Marty Tothero in "Rabbit Run" by John Updike, a third person The narrator establishes the scene "Rabbit looks up hopefully at the third floor windows but there are no light shows" before we are introduced to Tothero via free indirect speech and are made aware of Rabbit's thoughts without being placed explicitly in his head: "Tothero, if he is there, he is still asleep"; this is Rabbit's hypothesis. Tothero is only hinted at and is initially characterized as an abstraction. Furthermore, more emphasis is placed on the importance of Rabbit's need to meet Tothero than on the importance of establishing Tothero as an individual person "[Rabbit] doesn't want to sleep so heavily that he will miss Tothero when he goes out... .He must not lose Tothero." Tothero's character is therefore established first and foremost by his relationship with Rabbit, before Rabbit even meets Tothero himself. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay That Tothero is Rabbit's old teacher is not apparent until, once again through free indirect discourse, the observation is made that "[Tothero] has the disciplinarian's trick of waiting a long moment while his words gain weight." Up to this point he is characterized almost entirely through Rabbit's eyes, but when Tothero speaks he reveals a deeper characteristic; that is, a calm sense of reason: "It doesn't seem like very mature behavior," he says of Rabbit's decision to leave his home; and of Janice's out-of-control alcoholism he says, "Maybe if you had shared this pleasure [of drinking with your wife] she could have controlled it"; and when Rabbit calls Janice "stupid", Tothero replies, "Harry, that's a hard thing to say. Of any human soul." Despite this apparent balance, Tothero later contradicts his own advice when he makes even worse comments about women. And furthermore, despite the advice she gives Rabbit and the way she berates him for his decision to leave Janice, she later tells him to "do what the heart commands... The heart is our only guide." Following his heart, however, is exactly what Rabbit did; that's exactly what brought him to Tothero in the first place. This almost hypocritical contradiction between a sense of reality and a sense of idealism is the essence of Tothero's character, but we don't realize it until we reconcile Rabbit's perception of Tothero with things Tothero actually says and does. When he speaks, and we are free from Rabbit's preconceived perception of him, Tothero reveals the sense of reason and fairness that, we understand, made him so good at his profession in the first place. But on some level he considers himself a failure. This sense of self is revealed through his dialogue, not so much by what he says but rather by what he doesn't say: "I can't tell you how much it means to me that you came to me when you needed help, [Harry]. . . .All those years, all those boys, pass through your hands and end up in nothingness, and never come back, Harry; if he notices that his former students never come back, he connects it to himself, and there is a certain amount of guilt in his words, the implication of which is that he is unable to make those boys come back or give them any reason to do so; and obviously this is the case, because they are a symbol of the past and the past is not may never return. However, he tries to reclaim an era that is long gone: “Rabbit waits and then realizes that Tothero wants to see him undress. ...Why look? SuddenlyRabbit knows it. It takes Tothero back in time." Furthermore, Tothero's failed status is exemplified when, in the Chinese restaurant, he attempts to dispense his personal philosophy on teaching to Rabbit, Ruth, and Margaret. "The coach is concerned with developing the three tools that we are given in life: the head, the body and the heart," he says. But these words, which are the end product of years of teaching experience and therefore of years of accumulated wisdom, become the butt of one of the jokes Ruth and, worse still, they can't even get Rabbit's attention. "Don't you agree with me, Harry?" asks Tothero. "Yes, of course," says Rabbit, "I'll finish yesterday, Harry, and then you can speak." He finally finishes what he wants to say, but as soon as he's done, Ruth changes the subject to talk about Rabbit. But there's another side to Tothero: "What's [this girl thing], yeah, what's it all about? Cunt." He is a rough man as well as a teacher, and Rabbit, after his escape from Janice, is the product of these Tothero qualities when they work in tandem: he teaches Rabbit to be rough. After his aforementioned outburst, "[Tothero] seems astonished to be told something so blunt and ugly. Yet he's also looking at [Rabbit] as if he's some sort of test." Although he doesn't teach Rabbit to be so crude as in this scene, he familiarizes Rabbit with his habit of philandering. Note that, although his language does Without descending to such levels again, his treatment of women certainly does: "I have an acquaintance," he says, "a woman in love perhaps, to whom I offer a meal once every blue moon. But it's nothing more, little more than that." He later tells Rabbit that "a young woman has hair on every part of her body. ...They're monkeys, Harry. Women are monkeys." All this despite his statement that "it makes me happy, happy and humble, to have, as I do, this very tenuous association with her." And just as Tothero's womanizing is the flip side of his sense of reason, so too is his old, haggard physical appearance: the flip side of his "young at heart" desire to reclaim the past. It seems "weirder than Rabbit expected." He looks like a dwarf." It is certainly not the image of a coach in love with his basketball players, but it is entirely the image of an old coach in love with a player who has returned to him. Tothero, therefore, is characterized by contradictions between reason and passion, between past and present, between the reality of his existence and the way Rabbit sees it, and between reality and the way he sees himself. His dialogue reveals a wise man despite the words he says uses are undeniably harsh; his actions reveal a tolerant and temperate man even as he is mired in petty indulgences and pleasures; his physical appearance shows a man who has not aged gracefully even as he still thinks of the boys he taught and insists on watch; Rabbit undresses as if he were in a locker room; Rabbit's initial admiration for Tothero gives way to the man's weariness even as Tothero cheerfully dispenses advice to Rabbit as if he were still a teacher. Tothero is characterized as much by what he does as he is by what he once did, and as much by why he does it as by the reasons Rabbit thinks he does it. His characterization arises from the discrepancies between his words and actions and the way Rabbit responds to those words and actions. He is a mentor to Rabbit - or was, but now he is tainted and teaches Rabbit lessons and encourages behavior that is not appropriate in terms of repairing Rabbit's failed marriage. Reverend Eccles has much the same effect on Rabbit, although he at least tries to help Rabbit solve his problems rather than transplant him into acompletely new situation in which he faces a completely new set of obstacles. “You never knew what Eccles really meant,” we are told, once again through free indirect discourse from Rabbit's point of view; "You had to take what you wanted." Eccles, like Tothero, is characterized by Rabbit's perception of him, but to a lesser extent. It is more often characterized by his wife's perception of him and his own actions, own dialogue than by anything else. However, because other characters, including Rabbit and Lucy Eccles, do not understand or understand some of Eccles' more eccentric actions, he is able to maintain an air of mystery, and therefore an air of superiority. "[Eccles'] whole game is to get [Rabbit] out in the open where he can be manipulated." Therefore, if his motives remain obscured, he is superior to those who cannot understand them, that is, to everyone except Fritz Kruppenbach, to whom he turns for advice, and even then Eccles regains a kind of superiority when he refuses Kruppenbach's invitation to pray. , for reasons of anger and, consequently, "hypocrisy". However, when we are privy to Eccles' thoughts, we realize that his confident and cheerful facade belies his self-doubting essence: "With his white collar he forges the image of God's name on every word he says. He steals faith to the children he is supposed to teach. He kills the faith in the minds of anyone who actually listens to his chatter his heart knows the true father he is trying to please, he has been trying to please all his life, the God who smoke cigars." Indeed, the only other person to whom this "inner Eccles" is visible is Lucy, who, although she does not understand why her husband does the things he does - for example, why he would rather play golf than telephone members of the his congregation - at least understands that certain things are important to him. He tells Rabbit that Eccles' help in solving Rabbit's marital problems "is the first constructive thing he thinks he's done since coming to Mt. Judge" and that "to hear him talk, the whole thing was on his shoulders". Eccles works on his own schedule: he has no set hours, comes in and out of people's lives as he pleases, and works towards his own goals, though they are always well-intentioned. At first it seems flawless. However, almost all of his flaws, such as they are, are embodied in his wife. She points out his physical stature: that he has gained weight and lost hair, that he is getting older since he started helping Rabbit. He criticizes his behavior towards his daughter Joyce, reading poems to her that he considers unsuitable. If Eccles himself appears to the outside world as a man without flaws or doubts, then his wife reveals those flaws to Rabbit and to us, while Eccles' thoughts reveal his doubts to us, but not to Rabbit; even if in the end we learn the motivations that push him to do what he does, to wear a mask of joviality, to fight for good and to help others, he still maintains his air of mystery and therefore his superiority compared to the world that surrounds him. in this way Eccles is characterized both by what he does and by how and why he does it. But, while Rabbit can easily see the ways in which Eccles helps him – by offering him a job with Mrs. Smith and focusing so much attention on his family to fix Rabbit's marriage – his motives are only hinted at in the remarks. made by Lucy, and are then filtered down to Rabbit from Lucy's point of view, with her prejudices against Rabbit completely under control. We are never given a completely accurate portrait of Eccles: he is half the product of his labor and half the product of his wife, characterized as much by his actions as byhis wife's account of the possible reasons for those actions. actions. Where we might have a fair and balanced view of Tothero by comparing what he said and did with the intentions behind what he said and did, we cannot have a similar view of Eccles because he is characterized in such a way that his true nature is tainted. from the distorted perspective on his character held by his wife, who wishes he would focus less attention on Rabbit. Eccles' characterization is a puzzle of obvious actions and not-so-obvious interpretations of those actions, of impressions he makes on Rabbit and of impressions he makes on others that he then shares with Rabbit. Eccles, essentially, is semi-real and semi-mythical - which is what Tothero once was, but no longer is. If the novel is essentially about the decisions Rabbit must make about two possible lives - a life of simple but imprisoning domesticity represented by Eccles and Janice, and a life of complex but liberating impulses represented by Tothero and Ruth - then Rabbit is a combination of both men and the product of both women, alternately domestic and impulsive depending on the circumstances. Rabbit himself is characterized not only by his actions and other characters' impressions of him, but also by the actions of other characters and his impressions of other characters, and how those actions and impressions relate to his character. Perhaps in foreshadowing Rabbit's final choice between these two lives, he is characterized twice in terms of similarities and differences between himself and between Tothero and Eccles respectively. "Hit me," he orders Ruth, "come on. You want to do it, don't you? Really hit me," to which she replies, "That's what poor Maggie has to do for your old bastard friend [Tothero]." Later, Lucy Eccles tells him, "It's the differences between you [and Eccles] that I notice. ... Like the fact that you're not afraid of women." But obviously, in a way, he's afraid of women; he runs away from Janice three times, the last time when she "hits" him - not physically, but nevertheless lashes out at him in a way that really hurts, when he kills their daughter. And if Rabbit is pulled back and forth between these choices, and is drawn another way by the other choice, then his character is revealed by contrast in his environment: we observe how he behaves in one environment, then we observe how it behaves in the other, and we compare and contrast the two. When he first leaves the house, gets into the car and drives, it seems to be an act of stupid impulse, but as Rabbit becomes more and more comfortable in his solitude, away from Janice and away from home, we realize that this is something he had to do and this makes the most logical sense given the circumstances he was in. Eccles also agrees with this: "If I had to leave my wife," he says, "I would get in the car and drive a thousand miles." However, when Rabbit returns to Brewer and Tothero and leaves his loneliness in the past, we realize that he is making an illogical choice based on what he supposes he should do: "This is what I did!" he tells Eccles, before adding, "I drove to West Virginia. Then I thought what the hell and came back. ...It seemed safer to be in a place I know." This retreat from a life away from domesticity, however, is the same kind of confident, compliant choice he was making when he was with Janice, although, this time, he is doing what he supposes he should do in terms of impulsiveness. rather than complacency. This contrast between two environments - and between a person who behaves in two different ways in both environments, albeit with the same goal of finding some kind of meaning in both - ultimately reveals a character whohe can't be happy. in an environment that does not change, to the point of consciously changing that environment, to the point of sabotaging it. "I played world-class basketball," he tells Eccles, "And after you're first-rate at something... it kind of takes away the pleasure of being second-rate. And that little thing that I and Janice we said, guys, that was really second rate." Nowhere is this self-destructive impulse more evident than in Rabbit's behavior in Club Castanet: "Come on, Ruth," he says, and suggests that they leave. She protests: "I'm happy." “Let's go,” he insists, and walks out the door with Ruth in tow, with utter disregard for his happiness, just as he walked out the door of his house with utter disregard for his wife's happiness. And first, in a completely calm and serene moment when he and Ruth are at the top of the mountain overlooking Brewer and "he holds her tighter and feels better", he breaks the spell between them with an inappropriate question "Were you really a whore?" – no doubt the product of Tothero's re-education of a boy who he says is "so innocent". Rabbit even goes so far as to take his newfound life and compress its essence into a slogan that sounds like wisdom but is, instead, merely characteristic of his hedonism: "If you dare to be yourself," he says, "other people will pay the price." your price." Rabbit, therefore, is characterized primarily by his actions when he finds himself in unfamiliar circumstances: his desperation for something significant brings out his character, for better or for worse, as those circumstances may be. He is rarely characterized directly through his dialogue, because he rarely speaks his mind; although when he speaks his mind, as in the comment above, it is all the more powerful for his otherwise reserved words. Furthermore, he is rarely characterized by other characters' comments about him. "You're so smug, it bothers me," Ruth tells him, but he simply stays silent and stares at her, and it's this gesture, rather than Ruth's comment, that characterizes him: at this point we know he's smug. , but we have yet to see how he will respond to someone calling him smug. He responds, again through free indirect discourse, with the thought that "the blue of his irises has deepened and darkened inward with a richness that, singing the truth to his instincts, disturbs him." This characteristic response is developed later in the novel with the third-person narrator's observation that Rabbit "hates being unpleasant." But such comments and observations are few and far between. Rabbit is more of a man of action than a man of words and explanations, characterized first by what he does and then, later, when his motives are revealed or hinted at, he is further characterized by why he does it. Furthermore, it is this "why" that drives Eccles to help Rabbit, and it is this notion of "getting things done" that attracts Tothero to him - and so we have a perpetual cycle of action and motivation, action and motivation in which both Tothero and Eccles are attracted to Rabbit and, at the same time, they feed him their ideas and, in the same way, he pushes them to continue chasing him, and so the circle goes on. Tothero is characterized not only by how Rabbit sees him or how Rabbit's perception of him fits with the reality of his existence, but also by how Rabbit contrasts him with Eccles, and thus he is further characterized by the way his opposition to Eccles' altruism pushes Rabbit to continue following in Tothero's footsteps so that Eccles continues to have reason to enter Rabbit's life. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a custom essay Allo.