“If we are to understand Rabbit's identity crisis as emerging from Updike's Christian apologetics, the important critical task is to recognize the combination of sin, agitated depression, and simple worldliness in Rabbit, and to detect and describe the particular form of irony with which Updike hints at alternatives to his character's acts. These alternative acts will be Christian works of love that, in Kierkegaardian fashion, transcend the ethical and epitomize a genuine faith and sanguine identity. (Crowe 84)” In this paragraph by Crowe, he talks about how Rabbit has an identity crisis and he is explaining the Christian way that Rabbit grew up in and how that affected how he is to combat sin and depression and other worldly things that have happened in his life. Vision of America Rabbit, Run is set against the background of the America of the fifties. The Eisenhower era, apart from offering tremendous consumerist possibilities, urged Americans to reorient themselves to the postwar reality. The cultural atmosphere of the 1950s, charged by the politics of the Cold War, thus necessitated the phenomena of self-definition at all levels and in all areas of life. Alive to the mood of inner-directedness, Updike's Rabbit considers himself “as a person in the process of becoming”. This involves his rejection of certain traditional aspects of American life in search of a satisfactory place in the world that is never really found, as the book ends with his fate uncertain. Transience Rabbit is always running, searching and questing for meaning. But while at times he finds himself enthralled with people, like his relationship with Ruth, his conversations with Eccles, and his initial return to his family, in the end Rabbit is dissatisfied and takes flight. Transience appears to be implicit in the character. References to other works Previously, Updike had written a short story entitled "Ace In The Hole", and to a lesser extent a poem, "Ex-Basketball Player", with similar themes to Rabbit Run. In his senior year at Harvard, Updike submitted to his writing instructor "Flick", an early version of "Ace in the Hole". Updike later sent "Flick" to The New Yorker where it was rejected. Updike said that he wrote Rabbit, Run in response to Jack Kerouac's On the Road, and tried to depict "what happens when a young American family man goes on the road – the people left behind get hurt." The 2002 American drama film