John Updike’s The Centaur and the Artist Divided
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2019.11.6Keywords:
The Centaur, artist divided, mythology, identityAbstract
George Hunt observed that often the central character in an Updike novel is an unsuccessful or failed artist, a propensity that began in 1963 with Peter Caldwell in The Centaur. The main character, Caldwell/Chiron, is both human and centaur, and all of the characters have mythic identities, including Caldwell’s adult son, Peter, who narrates the novel and is assigned the role of Prometheus. Yet, because Peter is torn between abstract expressionist ambitions and mimetic inclinations that underscore a love of detail, he is as much of a centaur, metaphorically speaking, as the elder Caldwell, and an examination of his divided artistic self further illuminates Updike’s declaration that “the book as well as the hero is a centaur.”
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