Pigeon Feathers
by John Updike
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See Also
- Theory of Short Fiction (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
- John Updike (Critical Survey of Poetry: American Poets)
- John Updike (Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition)
- John Updike (Identities & Issues in Literature)
- John Updike (The Sixties in America)
- John Updike (Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition)
- John Updike (Critical Survey of Short Fiction, Second Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Updike
- First Published: 1961
- Type of Work: Short story
- Genres: Short fiction
- Subjects: Family or family life, Adolescence, God, Fear, Life and death
- Locales: United States, North America
The Work
“Pigeon Feathers” showcases early several of Updike’s continuing strengths, for the story wrestles with ontological issues in a prose that is stately and powerful. David is a young boy who has moved with his parents to the rural Pennsylvania farm where his mother grew up, and the move has been disturbing. He is used to his parents’ bickering and his senile grandmother’s nervous habits, but when he stumbles upon H. G. Wells’s account of Jesus in The Outline of History (1920) that denies his divinity, “a stone that for weeks and even years had been...
(The entire page is 609 words.)
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