Updike gives us characters that he understands–if not agreeing with their choices–and allows us that same insight. As I’ve shown in a previous example, we follow Rabbit’s motivations by knowing his thought processes, his dreams, his desires. He becomes a full rounded character by our understanding of how he thinks–or sometimes ignores events and people–in his situation.
What we’re being treated to now is another point of view, that of Rabbit’s inlaws’ minister, Eccles, as he interacts with Rabbit and others affected by Rabbit’s decision to leave his family. Here he is visiting Rabbit’s mother, and by their conversation as well as getting inside Eccles’ head, we become more involved with the story:
Eccles smiles, wondering if the Lutheran church gives everyone such ideas. Luther himself was a little like this, perhaps–overstating half-truths in a kind of comic wrath. The whole black Protestant paradox-thumping maybe begins there. Deep fundamental hopelessness in such a mind. Hubris is shoving the particular aside. Maybe: he’s forgotten most of the theology they made him absorb. It occurs to him that he should see Angstrom’s pastor. (p. 150)
What this gives us in another point of view, a character trying to understand another character. At the same time, we begin to understand that character as well. These are all very different people and their reactions to what Rabbit has done is going to give us all the different angles.
That is, besides our own reader response.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology