How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
He [Eccles] seems to hear that she [Mrs. Springer] is going to call the police to arrest him. Why not? With his white collar he forges God’s name on every word he speaks. (8.9)
Eccles’ identity is breaking apart, though he doesn’t necessarily feel like a criminal all the time, but definitely while embodying the traditional role of minister.
Quote #8
He [Rabbit] feels underwater, caught in chains of transparent slime, ghosts of urgent ejaculations he has spat into the bodies of mild women. (12.28)
Not just here, but in much of the novel, The Trap that Rabbit is always squirming to get out of threatens to take over his identity, while poisoning it with guilt. He can’t figure out how to integrate his need for freedom and his sense of duty.
Quote #9
She had talked with Peggy and Reverend Eccles and prayed and had come to an understanding that marriage wasn’t a refuge it was a sharing and she and Harry would start to share everything. And then, it was a miracle, these last two weeks had been that way.
And then Harry had suddenly put his whore’s filthiness into it and asked her to love it and the unfairness makes her cry aloud softly, as if startled by something in the empty bed with her. (17.8-9)
Of course, we are getting Janice on the pretty end of a drinking binge, overburdened, traumatized by Rabbit, her post-pregnancy body, and her newborn – but Rabbit, Run only gives us one section from her point of view, and we do what we can, which is, for starters, to notice that she is trying desperately to separate her identity from Rabbit’s – she’s realizing that they can’t "share everything."