The Centaur (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Updike
- First Published: 1963
- Type of Plot: Mythic novel
- Time of Work: Monday morning to Thursday morning during the second week of January, 1947
- Setting: Olinger, Pennsylvania, and a farm outside Olinger near Firetown
- Principal Characters: George Caldwell (Chiron), Peter Caldwell (Prometheus), Cassie Caldwell (Ceres), Pop Cramer (Kronos), Al Hummel (Hephaestus), Louis M. Zimmerman (Zeus), Doc Appleton (Apollo), Vera Hummel (Venus)
- Genres: Long fiction, Mythological literature, Magical Realism
- Subjects: Teaching or teachers, Family or family life, United States or Americans, Adolescence, 1940’s, High schools or high school students, Sacrifice
- Locales: Pennsylvania
The Novel
In an interview in the Paris Review, John Updike confessed that The Centaur seemed his truest and liveliest book, a book which he was prompted to write in order to publicize the myth of Chiron, one of the few instances of self-sacrifice from the classical world. The novel contains an interesting, if at times rather disturbing, mixture of classical figures amid a realistic setting. The purpose of the actual presence of the mythological figures was to expand the significance of Peter Caldwell’s nostalgia and to counterpoint an ideal with a drab level of...
[The entire page is 2240 words long]

