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THE CENTAUR
John Updike

Diego Lopez
JOHN UPDIKE (1932 -2009)
 Born in Reading Pennsylvania
 Lived childhood in Shillington (fictional Ollinger), on the outskirts of Reading
 Graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1954
 Renowned novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic
 Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Rea Award for the Short Story-twice each
 Guggenheim Fellowship
 National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts
 OTHER FAMOUS WORKS

 Rabbit, Run

 Rabbit is Rich

 Rabbit Redux

 Rabbit at Rest

 The Witches of Eastwick

 Ollinger Stories
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 MODERNISM

 The change in “subjects, forms, concepts, and styles of literature

and the other arts […] after World War I” (Abrams 167).
 Period in which authors decided to break off of traditional views
and interpretations of the world and the environment (Lopez 1).
 The break that Updike took in the Centaur is to base his work on
Greek mythology and a theme of sacrifice
 CHIRON AND PROMETHEUS

 Prometheus was in charge of creating Man. Due to their lack of qualities, Prometheus
gave Man the look and posture of the gods, and also fire stolen from the realm of Zeus.
As punishment, Zeus sent Prometheus to be tied up on a cliff and to have his intestines
eaten away by a large eagle for eternity.

 Chiron, eldest and wisest of the centaurs, was accidentally shot in the knee by Hercules
with an arrow that was poisoned with Hydra blood (caused wounds that would not heal).
To end his agony, Chiron decided to give up his immortality to Prometheus

 Hercules then broke Prometheus free from his chains and gave him his gift of life
from Chiron
 THE CENTAUR PLOT

 The Centaur is the recreation of the myth of Chiron and

Prometheus set in Ollinger High School in rural Pennsylvania in 1947.
Chiron is represented by George Caldwell. Prometheus is represented
by Peter Caldwell. The incidents and accidents of three winter days
illustrate how much George sacrificed paternally and selflessly for his
son.
 CRITICAL ARGUMENT

 Many critics believe that Updike’s allusion of George Caldwell in The Centaur as the
representation of Chiron does not adequately express Chiron and his mythological
magnificence, or “treat the story objectively or […] push the myth further” (Lewis
340). However, upon further analysis of the novel, Caldwell is a fitting modern
recreation of the struggle and prominence of Chiron the centaur, and the myth is seen
in a greater way. In a back and forth system from story to Greek mythology, with a
condescending, mocking but serious tone, Updike uses irony, allusion and meaningful
quotes to create this similarity of Chiron and George Caldwell.
 ALLUSION

 “The pain extended a feeler into his head and unfolded its wet
wings along the walls of his thorax, so that he felt, in his sudden
scarlet blindness, to be himself a large bird waking from sleep”
(Updike 3).
• Not only does Updike begin with ‘the pain’ which refers to
the pain that George Caldwell felt when shot with an arrow
in the ankle by his students, but Updike also alludes to the
eagle that punishes Prometheus every single day.
 NECESSITY OF MYTH

 “Not only is the mythic parallel artful, but it is also necessary to

take us beyond the confines of the immediate, to objectify the implicit
religious intuition felt by the characters throughout the novel” (Vargo
452).
• Updike’s use of the myth takes the myth into a deeper level, not only
showing the ‘religious intuition’ of the characters, but also showing their
true essence of soul and mind and how Caldwell represents Chiron in
both of these aspects
 IRONY

 “I felt him clinging to my father, sucking the strength from him”

(Updike 97).
• Irony is found here because Peter is saying this statement
thinking that it is one of his father’s students that is sucking
away his life, when in reality it is Peter himself that is doing
so. This ironic statement can also compare to how
Prometheus never knew it would be him that would basically
be taking the life from Chiron
 CALDWELL/CHIRON

 “George, in his parental concern for Peter, is capable of the

sacrifices that Chiron made for Prometheus” (Pugh 399).
• Pugh also agrees that Caldwell is a fitting recreation of
Chiron in that Caldwell has the same qualities and has the
same protection for Peter as Chiron had for Prometheus
 CALDWELL/CHIRON

 “My father provided; he gathered things to himself and let them fall
upon the world; my clothes, my food, my luxurious hopes had fallen to
me from him, and for the first time his death seemed, even at its immense
stellar remove of impossibility, a grave and dreadful threat" (Updike 90).
• The complexity of this quote can be broken apart and analyzed in
different aspects. First of all, the first half refers to how Caldwell gave so
much to Peter, just like how Chiron gave so much to Prometheus, like a
small example would be his life. The second half of the quote alludes to
how death for Caldwell should be literally impossible, since Chiron was
immortal, but death became a reality once he was struck with the
poisoned arrow.
 IMPORTANT QUOTE

 He opened his mouth; his very blood loathed the story he had told.
"One minute ago, flint-chipping, fire-kindling, death-foreseeing, a tragic
animal appeared—" The buzzer rasped; halls rumbled throughout the vast
building; faintness swooped at Caldwell but he held himself upright,
having vowed to finish. “—called Man” (Updike 45).
• One can see that Updike, in his novel, starts with a terrible view on
mankind. However, Prometheus gained his punishment because he stole
fire from Zeus and gave it to Man because he thought of them as a
humble race that needed more. Also, Chiron saved Prometheus, implying
that Chiron also supported Prometheus’ actions.
 WORKS CITED
 "The+centaur - Google Search." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
 "The+centaur - Google Search." Google. Pinterest, n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
 Pugh, Griffith T. "National Book Awards." The English Journal 53.5 (1964):
398-99. Web.
 Updike, John. The Centaur. New York: Knopf, 1963. Print.
 Vargo, Edward P. "The Necessity of Myth in Updike's The
Centaur." PMLA 88.3 (1973): 452-60. Web.