Duffy, Brian (2012) Loss of trust as disconnection in John Updike’s Trust me. E-rea: Revue électronique d?études sur le monde Anglophone., 9 (2). ISSN 1638-1718
Abstract
While the title of John Updike’s short-story collection, Trust Me (1987), and the theme of betrayed trust of the first story (“Trust Me”) offer a thematic coherence to the collection, it would be restrictive to read the stories through the simple thematic filter of betrayed trust leading to weakened human attachments. Trust is given a wider articulation in the collection, that of a mode of connection for human beings to their world, their lives, and to others. The loss of trust for the protagonists in the stories, “The City” and “The Wallet,” is undergone as just such a loss of connection, engendering in both cases an existential disquiet. The article explores the nature of these existential crises, situating them within Updike’s wider deployment of the motif of the fall in his collection. The article goes on to consider the manner in which the existential theme of these two stories is informed by Updike’s own recurring existential unease, a reflection justified by the avowedly autobiographical dimension of his short fiction.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article (Published) |
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Refereed: | Yes |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | John Updike; short stories; trust and connection; fall motif; existential crises; allegory; death; autobiographical influence |
Subjects: | Humanities > Literature |
DCU Faculties and Centres: | DCU Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Humanities and Social Science > School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies |
Publisher: | Laboratoire d'Etudes et de Recherche sur le Monde Anglophone (LERMA) |
Official URL: | http://dx.doi.org/10.4000/erea.2496 |
Copyright Information: | © 2012 LERMA |
Use License: | This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. View License |
ID Code: | 16913 |
Deposited On: | 23 Apr 2012 10:21 by Fran Callaghan . Last Modified 19 Jul 2018 14:55 |
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