Narrative Chromaticism of Youth and Age in John Updike'sSeek My Face

Abstract

The encounter between 79-year-old abstract painter Hope Chafetz and 27-year-old art critic Kathryn D'Angelo in John Updike's Seek My Face (2002/2003) is envisioned as what G. Ephrain Lessing calls a “pregnant moment,” which acquires narrative movement through the constant and evolving interaction between both protagonists. Such interaction gains meaning when explored in the light of abstract painter Hans Hofmann's “push and pull theory.” In the following pages I intend to visualize the women's rapport as the alignment of two lines in a painting moving in different directions as they create a “universe, in motion” (p. 33) within the novel, where old age and youthfulness are part of the same palette of colors.